>"Then buy a machine that was not built to be a dedicated Windows box. Motherboard vendors will continue to make boards where secureboot is absent or configurable. They already cater to the build-your-own and tweaking segments."

Are there boxes NOT built to be dedicated MS-Windows machines? How many are there? How about laptops? Last time I checked stores, there were exactly zero non-Apple machines that were sold that came without MS-Windows installed.

Consumers should not be be relegated to a very, very, very few models of computers, sold only online, and often without the features they want, just because they want the ability to turn off a simple feature in the BIOS that a convicted monopoly developed and wants to force down everyone's throats. There is absolutely no good reason secure boot should be locked on.

> Do you believe that jury duty also "goes against freedom"?

Right now, yes. But for a completely different reason... it is *NOT* mandatory for all citizens. It is only mandatory for those who are registered voters. And that is incredibly unfair.

>"No. The "solution" is to give all buyers the option of buying a machine with or without secureboot locked down. There is nothing wrong with a buyer preferring to get a factory locked down box if they so choose."

Yes there is. It doesn't make sense to offer a forced secureboot machine. Highly improbably any OEM is going to offer two of the same model. Either it will be unlocked or locked and not offered both ways (almost guarantee it). And if it is locked- it is "defective by design".

Plus most consumers don't know and won't know what secure boot is until it is too late. And they won't be told it anyway, and can't find out even if they want to know... it won't be on the box, or in manuals, or on the website or even with customer support. They might decide they need to run a utility or a different OS 6 months later and they are just screwed.

>"So Red Hat and Ubuntu establish relations with consumer hardware vendors and offer factory signed binaries. Linux is not doomed. Linux kernel developers need to be careful about their motherboards but the vast majority of Linux uses would be just fine."

And what about Mageia?
And what about FreeBSD?
And what about FreeDOS?
And what about VMWare VSX?
And what about that hard drive diagnostic disc?
And what about that RAID controller utility?
And what about any number of many dozens of OSes, utilities, and distros?

The "solution" is not to try and get everyone to play by the stupid secureboot "rules" that MS is trying to force on everyone. The solution is to have ALL machines give the owner of the machine the CHOICE to decide if they want secureboot on or off.

Microsoft saying it is "optional" means it absolutely won't be optional when they start putting behind-the-scenes (and probably illegal) pressure on the OEM's to start the lockdown.

This is still the wrong approach. The owner of the hardware should have the right to turn it off if they so choose. It should not be up to Microsoft. And it should not be up to the OEM. And it should not be up to carriers. And it should not be up to the government, either (might as well keep extending out the doom-and-gloom possibilities).

OEM's should listen to their customers and not Microsoft. Locking the bootloader is extremely anti-consumer and anti-competitive. The time to find out your machine is a paperweight should not be after you spent your hard-earned money buying a machine. When this whole fiasco started, there was ZERO transparency from the OEM's. You could not call Dell and ask if machine X had a locked secureboot, because the idiot support and sales people don't know. And it is not listed on the websites, the manuals, or the boxes.

>"gained control over Steve's account just by speaking to customer support and submitting a Photoshopped ID."

Are you sure it wasn't a "Gimped ID" or any number of other programs? Yeesh.

Hint: "photoedited" ID.

Mandatory voting is a hugely bad idea:

1) It goes against freedom
2) It encourages people to vote who have no idea (or less idea) what the issues are. This brings poorer choices and dilutes the votes of those who DO know what the issues are.
3) It encourages people to vote who apparently have no interest in the issues.

What we desperately need is the introduction of some form of preferential voting like instant runoff voting (and possibly the end of the electoral college). THAT would make a HUGE and PRODUCTIVE change in ways that really matter. We could then be free of being locked into a two-party race where both parties essentially suck. People could vote for who they want without fear they are throwing their vote away or fear of allowing someone they don't like getting elected because they didn't vote for the lesser of two evils.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.fairvote.org/reform...

WTF? You are the one insane...

>"Not depending on which display so much, but with LCD displays, depending more on what angle you are looking at. Look at it straight on, and the dress is white and gold"

Well, in my case, when I look at the photo in any light, on any monitor, at any angle, at any time, I have and have always seen only light blue and brown/gold. There is no situation where it is either "blue and black" or "white and gold".

The question is what we see in the photo, not what the dress ACTUALLY is- we can't know that because all we are allowed to see is a [poor] PHOTO of the dress, not the actual dress. And it is obvious the camera white balance and exposure is way off, trying to compensate for something, resulting in a photo with a probably very false representation.

> "We needed a plan to make it easy for Web developers to build compatible sites regardless of which browser they develop first for."

Can you even IMAGINE Microsoft saying that 15 years ago? 10 years ago? So is it because they are a better company now before... or is it just because they have no choice but to cooperate (since people left IE in droves for Firefox, Opera, and Chrome)?

>" They also explain how they decided against using WebKit so they wouldn't contribute to "a monoculture on the Web."

Oh right.... because Microsoft would never want to support a monoculture... Hmm... I need to go find some Twilight Zone episodes to watch, now.

That is not a real smart watch. There is no matrix display, no text, graphics, no apps. I wouldn't be able to see my appointments, no notifications, no weather info, no Email, no voice response, no wikipedia lookup, just time.

>Waiting for a 2+ year battery life which is what I expect of my watches.

I assume you are joking? A "dumb" watch battery life can't be compared to a smart watch. And if you are seriously waiting for a year year battery life, you will be waiting decades (or longer). Of course, if all you want is time/date and maybe an alarm or stopwatch, then you should be fine with a traditional watch.

Meanwhile, I have been VERY happy with my Moto 360 and its 2-day battery life. As long as I can reliably get 24 hours, which is extremely easy on the 360, I (and most people) are set.

The e-ink (and now color e-ink) in the Pebble is what makes it neat and interesting, not the [claimed 1 week] battery life. But I will still choose the 360 over it every time (speed, style, functionality, compatibility, etc).

I think you hit on the solution: A hard power switch.

And better yet, also add: A hard microphone switch and a physical shutter for the cameras. I wouldn't mind having a hard radio switch and/or GPS switch too.

No software can work around that when you need real privacy.

>"Ubuntu is now the leading cloud and scale-out Linux-based operating system"

More than CentOS/RHEL? I would want to see real numbers to back up that claim or at least a clarification of their definitions.

I agree that the results are interesting and the three possibilities you listed are exactly what I considered (except that in #3, you don't have to be altered to have no accidents :) people have accidents all the time while sober). Both #1 and #3 are highly improbable (and yet possible). The study is so severely flawed, drawing any conclusions from it is questionable at best.

Here are some other confounds and factors off the top of my head without even thinking about it very much:

* If any people were THC high (which we don't know and isn't even defined), it doesn't relate HOW altered they might be and how that relates to safety.

* I doubt there were many controls for all possible other chemical factors that could be present beyond alcohol and THC (cold medications, dozens of other illicit drugs, etc).

* One can be altered in such a way that causes OTHER (non-altered) people to have more accidents even if the THC-positive people don't (for example, driving too slowly or staying in the wrong lane, causing other people to get irritated and more aggressive/dangerous (this seems to be common with "older" drivers, for example)).