Aside from the fact that this decision is crap (I agree), and you'd have to spend $$$ to get a tuner card, you might not have to pay your cable company anything for a CableCard. For example, I have Comcast (sucks, but beats my other local cable company in every way: price, channels, and quality), and they include the cost of a tuner box in many of the packages. I have a TiVo instead of one of their boxes, and I get a $2.50/month credit for customer-provided equipment.

"stop working every few hours" would be a welcome improvement; there are people at my office that smoke at least 5 minutes out of every hour. They stink up the office, sometimes blocking the door open because, while they are able to carry a pack, lighter, and cell phone, they can't carry keys. They litter (even though there's a butt-receptacle), and I can't open my office window because of the smoke.

Smoking cigarettes is a filthy addiction, and not just because of the health issues. If I went and rolled in a pile of crap for a few minutes every hour or two and then came and stood in your office, you'd have me thrown out, but somehow smokers are "special".

Yes please! Of course, at the rate Alabama road crews build highways, I'd die of old age before it opened (even if they started tomorrow).

Hardly a similar comparison. We know what it takes to get to space.

Mercury was orbital after the first two manned flights, which used the same vehicle on top of a smaller rocket. Scaled Composites' work is not something that will apply to orbital flight (unless you want to re-create the space shuttle, and take a long time to get there).

Funny you should say that, since none of Virgin, Scaled Composites, and XCOR are working on orbital flight.

As soon as it is up to juries to set precedent, the small-time software developer is going to quit. I certainly wouldn't release or contribute to any free software that could cause me to get sued; I wouldn't have time or money to pay a lawyer to eventually hopefully get a decision in my favor.

If it was possible to prevent all security holes, this wouldn't be a bad idea. However, it is provably impossible to do so. This would just create a new inurance industry, profiting from others' mistakes. It would really only serve to cut down on development, especially from small companies and individuals that couldn't afford to make a single security mistake (or insurance against lawsuits).

I ordered some special-order sliding patio doors at Home Depot recently, and I'm paying to have them installed (next week). I've worked on over two dozen Habitat for Humanity house building projects, I helped when my parents added on to their house when I was a teen, and I have a good supply of my own tools (some of them handed down from my grandfather, who was a contractor). Why am I paying someone else?

• Installing a quality sliding door (especially in the place of a French door that is slightly larger) is a little tricky to get right, and if you don't get a sliding door installed correctly it won't work right. If I installed dozens or hundreds of sliding doors, I'd be able to get it right with ease, but these would have been the only sliding doors I'd ever installed.
• These doors are heavy. They are probably more than my father and I (even with a neighbor) could have easily managed. We sit at desks for a living (I carry the occasional server or router, but not that often). Sliding doors are awkward to handle as well.
• The installer is a professional tradesman with his crew (probably just one other person for this job). They have specialized skills and knowlege, just like I have specialized skills and knowlege. If they want a website, or need a office network, etc., they'll call someone like me.

As for complaining about self-stick flooring or pre-hung windows, WTF? Does this guy make his own plywood too? Guess what; builders have been using such materials for many years. It is quicker and easier, and in many cases allows for a nicer finished product (because a factory can generate a pre-finished piece that is nicer than even most professionals could fabricate on-site).

It got more than drop tests. It went through dynamic testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for something like a year; that was the first time the entire shuttle stack (orbiter, ET, SRBs) was assembled. Without Enterprise and the extensive testing it underwent, the rest of the shuttle program would not have happened.

Do you think there were only 12 men involved in the Apollo program because they were the only ones to walk on the Moon?

Heh, I saw it on the back of the 747 as it landed in 1978 at the Marshall Space Flight Center for dynamic testing. We got to walk up to it (and an external tank) at the NASA employee picnic right after that.

He's not the only person on the planet throwing knucklers. I played slow-pitch softball with a guy that could throw a knuckle-softball; we'd be tossing a ball to warm up and he'd drop a knuckler in there. Seeing that coming made you just want to jump out of the way (or fire a fastball back at his knees! :) ).

Do you personally trust every single employee of your bank? Your doctor's office and health insurance company? They are all governed by a large number of regulations about data control for privacy. Nobody wants their banking or health records leaked, but they act suprised when companies that handle sensitive data like this by locking down the computers and network.

Basically, it is their network, so their rules. Many companies are required by various regulations to make sure that sensitive and private data does not leave their control (which we all want), and the biggest threat is intentional (disgruntled employees) or unintentional (infected computers) leakage of bulk data across computer networks (sure, you could have a photographic memory and remember all the records you view, but that is limited in quantity and not the big concern). The only way to be (relatively, obviously nothing is perfect) sure of preventing that is to scan all data at the border, which requires nothing encrypted crosses that border.

No, I really don't think they'll stop for PCs. It makes it easier for them to get vendors to agree to the Secure Boot requirement to begin with. I don't believe they could really get HP and Dell to ship computers that were unable to run anything other than Windows 8.

Even if they do, we're no worse off than we would be if Fedora didn't get a key signed (telling users how to disable Secure Boot or trying to get vendors to include a Red Hat key in the UEFI firmware).