More value was returned to the shareholders. After all, what are they there for, to provide a solution where the free market acts to optimize the situation for both provider and customer, or to use a de-facto monopoly to maximize shareholder value?

We keep launching stuff into space, and launch cost is always a concern. This isn't new business, this is existing business. Even if only structural components could be space-source, and not the electronics or optics, it can still be a financial win.

That depends on the destination for the final product. If you're building something for use off-Earth, using space-based resources from construction allows you to eliminate launch costs for the weight of that thing.

This of course presumes that the launch cost of your asteroid harvester is less than the launch cost of what you're building with the materials. Then again, if one Earth-launched asteroid harvester can get enough raw materials for more than one space-built asteroid harvester, you're on your way. Or to put it in a more Slashdot-memetic way:
1 - Launch asteroid harvester.
2 - Use harvested materials to build more asteroid harvesters, plus other neat space-based stuff. Repeat.
3 - Profit!!

I'm guessing that the problem here is that there can either be executive salaries for chocolate (and coffee) companies in the US, or there can be adequate revenue for sustainable chocolate (and coffee) agriculture outside the US.

Of course we know which is more important.

Say that their business class service is not sufficiently functional and it's a Comcast problem. This problem will presumably be shared by other Comcast customers, if it's IP address based. It renders their service less valuable, and can be a reason for business class customers to choose another option. They may be losing business today because of this problem.

Perhaps good for people who read, "The Virtue of Selfishness."

To be fair I'm taking that title at exactly its face meaning and coming to the same conclusion as you. However I remember some E.E. Doc Smith books had the "Principle of Enlightened Self Interest" that I could potentially buy into, so I'm still leaving the door just a squeak open for Ayn Rand on this. But only a squeak.

I don't believe Philae has thrusters, much less thrusters that can be fired gently. I get the impression that there is one single-use thruster that was meant to counter the reaction of firing the harpoons, and neither went off as planned. I would guess that at some point they will attempt to manually fire both. But if something goes wrong with that attempt it's very possible that Philae will get launched off of the comet, so they probably want to get as much science done as possible before they even try it.

The bigger problem is the lack of sunlight on the solar cells.

I suspect that some would think that externalizing all possible costs is a legitimate path to higher profitability, and therefore a Good Thing under Capitalism as practices in the US. However I also suspect they'd be very careful who they would actually say that to.

Utter side point, and I'll probably get flamed for this, but since you've said "conservative enough", even as an AC...

It bothers me that I've never heard a Republican utter the phrase, "too conservative." It seems almost past their lexicon, which leaves me thinking that if someone spent the time coming up with conservative-to-the-absurd ideas and threw them out there, there would be Republicans lining up behind them. I would feel much better, like there might even be real political discourse, if some Republican could say that some idea or other is, "too conservative," without being immediately dismissed as being a RINO.

Since this is Slashdot, I'll say that that is another disturbing thing about systemd. From what I can tell by its advocates, there is absolutely nothing wrong with systemd. Any problems at all that show up are because of some piece of software that just isn't working well with systemd, or because of stupid obsolete Unix thought modes that haven't been purged from the rest of the system.

Incidentally, "too liberal" is in my lexicon, as is "too conservative," and I think that there are problems with SysVInit and OpenRC, as well.

Unused. I'm a bit amused to hear them refer to their examples as "strongly typed" languages.

Might this have bad implications for those who can keep their appetites and activity levels in decent proportion?

I'm thinking about the fact that airbags can be harmful to kids, because they're tuned for adults. What happens when we start tuning our restraint systems for the obese? Will they continue to function properly for trim people, will they work less effectively, or might they actually become harmful, like airbags for kids? (I would expect that they might become too stiff for old-normal body proportions, for instance.)