If the next Xbox had no support for DVD discs, and games were on a proprietary write-once disc that you couldn't read, nor write to from a standard PC, it would seriously curtail piracy for that console.
Ever tried a Wii Disc in your drive? There's only about 3 models of DvD drive that will actually read them (They're all LGs I think), despite this piracy on the Wii is rampant as hacking it is trivially easy, most people rip the discs in the Wii itself. Making the discs unreadable on anything but the console doesn't really have any effect on piracy.
My personal favourite: "No repeating characters allowed." Super idea!
No. 1 reason a good few of the people in my work forget their passwords all the time, the ones that do 'remember' write it down and either:
a) Stick it under the monitor for all to see
b) Put it in the top drawer of their desk which is always unlocked.
Fucking superb security policy if you ask me.
you might want to read up on smart meters and studies associated with them. they can help reduce your energy usage (together with near real time feedback provided by the meter) and change the usage distribution. i don't think i have to tell you why it's a good thing, for you and our whole energy/climate situation, to decrease your overall usage. flattening down the distribution away from the peaks we see today will help stabilizing and securing the grid (and reduce costs for the utility). obviously that doesn't excuse security problems in the system and they have to be addressed immediately.
energy theft has been a rather big problem in some countries and was an easy thing to accomplish. go ask italy why enel introduced smart meters back in 2001, even though they still don't profit of any userfeedback or newer billing plans. the main goal of introducing smart meters from the point of utilities is exactly to reduce energy theft, you think they're introducing flaws on purpose because they want to loose money?
This is worse than shareware. Shareware was free until you wanted the whole thing.
Do you suffer painful elimination? -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos"