So you'd be saying the same thing if the Internet were censored by government? Or if any company could sue you for a blog post criticizing their products? Freedom doesn't just need protection, it needs to be built in to systems from the ground up. HTTP is open so anyone can have a web server, SMTP is open so anyone can have a mail server, social networking? Facebook.

Facebook stole social networking from the Internet .The concept is locked up on private servers held by a private company. He who giveth can also taketh away.

Maybe I'm living in a bubble here but Microsoft's surface seems like a *competitive* product. It runs on ARM which puts it in the tablet space for power consumption whilst doing most of the things Windows users want to do (Exchange, Office etc) with a real keyboard. I won't be buying one but I would imagine that a smart company like Apple would want to offer an iWhatever alternative, or at least plan for one in this market which has just been given prod by M$.

But Apple may want something in between a tablet and a full blown laptop to compete with Microsoft's Surface. Makes sense to me.

Have a few of your past happy clients write you a reference and offer to have them call your prospective clients. You can also add some testimonials to your website. If you're good people will also refer you to their associates. Build a reputation.

I agree with the comments above. I think what gets me about this is that they're selling it as a benefit to drivers when in reality it's the insurance companies that have the most to gain.

How long before the insurance company succumbs to the temptation of penalizing those who use their cars too much? The more time you spend on the road the higher the chance that you'll be involved in an incident, regardless of how well you drive. You can see how such information could be used to discriminate against people living in rural areas and those living further from their place of work.

If the technology has been proven I think it will get out there eventually regardless of whether it's deployed commercially in the west or not. Even if it's through a fresh development effort which would not have been undertaken had the technology not been previously proven. It seems to me that the best chance we have at detecting any future clandestine SILEX lab would be to use the technology now under a well established regulatory system and gain experience which may be valuable in detecting labs in the future. Do we really want to let someone else be first to build these things?

Power supply maybe. Perhaps your external chassis provides cleaner, better power than your PC PSU?

Don't forget that China has successfully completed two orbital lunar missions with Chang'e 1 and 2.

Not a fan of Occam's razor, are we?
Are you saying we shouldn't investigate because the simplest answer is good enough?

If you want to know more about the origin of life, try investing in biology, not NASA
Yes, astrobiology ;-)

Neil is arguing for a bigger space program not to answer questions, but to inspire 'dreams'
Wouldn't you consider the possibility of answers to some of life’s most fundamental questions inspirational?

I'm reminded of that Shakespeare quote "I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space...". We're so primitive as a culture and know so little about the universe that all we can really do is choose a belief that fits comfortably within our realm of knowledge, or accept the fact that we don't know and that any logical theory is as valid as another in the absence of evidence.

We don't know what amount of time is required for life to spontaneously form in a given set of conditions. If we found it to be one day, in ideal conditions then yes, it's very likely it spontaneously formed here, daily. If it required several billion years for it to spontaneously form and take hold then I would say it's more likely it evolved elsewhere and that the primary form of creation is transmition.

We don't know how much other life is out there. If our Milky Way galaxy was found to be primary sterile?

There are many questions, and that's why Neil deGrasse Tyson is arguing for a bigger space program. We'd like answers.

Prometheus was a bit of a dissapointment - it had so much potential!

Argh, to the extent of face saving permitted in Slashdot commentry I'd like to retract my use of the terms "creation" and "intelligent design" in that context. Those terms are clearly identified with religion but my argument wasn't intended to be.