The cherry on top is the fact that even with the so-powerful-it's-practically-a-weapon transmitter, the data feed would take another 1600 years to come back to us.

Most GPS receivers are receive-only. Seems that some use very low power transmitters to clean up/convert signals, but those are seriously weak. A decent number of airlines already allow them.

The issue may be that there's a difference between "GPS" which is technically a strictly-receiver service (your phone never talks to the satellites, only maybe mumbles to itself) and "Location Services" that frequently mixes GPS with cell-based location estimates (which are at least trying to actively talk to cell towers).

>The reason we have people in airplane mode was there was a fear of detonating devices remotely with a cell phone after someone rigged a bomb to get this, a cell phone

Citation, please.

This is repeatedly quoted, but there's no official source, or... to be honest... any vaguely reasonable logic behind it. You think a terrorist is going to be at home building a bomb and getting really disappointed when United announces that they're going to ask you to use airplane mode or they'll threaten to have you arrested after the flight they intend to blow up lands? How TF does that make sense?

>Charcoal is pure carbon.

Not really. It still has some of those metals that end up as white oxides when you completely burn the charcoal, and it still has a decent amount of bound oxygen. The volatile compounds are mostly gone (with a bunch of the carbon) but all the trace metals are still there too. Some processes are able to remove some of them, with the goal being a result that retains as much carbon as possible, but burning even the best charcoal still results in non-carbon ash.

Coke (a slightly different process) has a notably higher carbon content, but even that isn't nearly close enough to "pure carbon" to be considered chemically pure carbon. It's better as a carbon source for steel and more expensive that charcoal as a heat source, but from what I can find, its still just shy of 90% carbon.