I hear that. The only reason I keep Comcast around any more is for 1. Internet and 2. HBO Go. And honestly if I could buy HBO Go from any other provider I would. (You hear that HBO! I'd pay you directly if you would let me!) I mean no PS3 or Roku support come on Comcast!

It has been months since I actually watched live TV, and the last time was because my Dad was over and wanted to watch the news. I get all of my media from either online streaming sources or DVD/BluRays (Almost all scanned to my Plex Server now). I do record a few shows now and again still but for the most part I have lost interest in most Cable TV only a few big shows ever get me to watch like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones and by the time I hear about them I can usually watch them on Netflix or Amazon Prime anyway.The wife loves HBO though so I'm stuck with that going forward most likely.

What about socialism?

I believe you have just invented the credit card company.

The CTA trains actually have two automated systems that should have stopped the train. The first is a dead man switch that when not being actively held causes the train to immediately stop. This failed.

Interestingly this is the second time this has failed in the past year. First time.

The second is a system that communicates acceptable speed to the train and if the train is over that speed it automatically slows the train. At the O'Hare station this speed is 15 mph. At the end of the O'Hare station is a bumper that should have stopped a train traveling at 15 mph even if still under power. It failed.

The problem with the CTA train at O'Hare wasn't just a negligent driver who dozed off but bad maintenance of safety equipment on the tracks as well. Classic case of more automation wouldn't have solved the problem.

Article about O'Hare.

You are exactly correct. There are very few programs that couldn't run completely in user space on a modern version of Windows (Vista SP1 or higher). The problem is that developers don't want to take the time to handle tokens and user permissions when the develop a program so they just require admin and since it's been going on for years no one complains.

I think that M$ is keenly aware of this too. It seems to me that every time they do a major update they try despratly to get developers to switch away from admin all the time and into trusted computing. I mean first it was "Click Once" and now it's Windows RT and the M$ App Store. It's just hard to get people to spend money on a system that they think won't let them run there stuff.

Also with quickbooks, something tells me that you found a DRM scheme that looks like an updater. I mean why the hell else would it need to call home so often?

Rand Paul invents new currency called the SPIDERCOIN. It will be pegged to the S&P 500's value..... and wait am minute this already exists. (See stock symbol SPY.) Why would I buy crypto currency that is just a stock pool sounds like an awfully complicated way to set up an ETF.

Look you ask why other companies don't do this and the answer is simple, they can't get away with it. Every cable company on the planet would love to have invented the practice. I could even see this ad happening:

Hell, they already do this with DVR's. Why don't people just buy a TIVO or TV with cable card slot instead of paying Comcast $15 a month for a DVR? Because they don't think that way.

The real answer is that companies have figured out that most people won't sit down and do the accounting to figure out what the true amortized or depreciated cost of any item is over the long term. They instead just look at the advertised price and compare apples to cats.

American's don't think, "I have enough cash for that." They think, "I have enough credit for that." and could give two shits that the item costs them 200% more over 2 years. The only way to fix it is to make credit harder to get but then our economy would collapse (sooner) so.... yeah bring on the credit bubble baby!

Clearly he's search engine trolling.

My prediction is that eventually History will look like this:

You are creating a false dichotomy here by assuming that the only way to buy a car is to buy new. Today, any used car that was built 4 years ago that has a clean crash history and under 50,000 miles is a better car that could have been purchased for the same inflation adjusted price in 1974. There are many reasons for this, improve quality, higher safety standards, ect.

The reason new cars cost comparably more than 1974 cars is that cars have become so reliable that it is no longer profitable to sell cars at that price point. Also, auto companies figured out that they could lease cars to people and then sell them after 2 years at a lower price. The net effect of this is that the average buyer can get a car that's cost was partially subsidized by someone who leased it if they are willing to not have the newest model. If I buy a used 2012 car that has 50k miles on it that costs less per mile in maintenance than 1974 car with 0 miles on it and the 2012 car will reasonably go at least 180K I come out ahead as a consumer vs the 1974 car at the same price point.

If we stopped using coal for power generation tomorrow we wouldn't stop using coal. What do you think they use to add carbon to iron to make steel?

The question is how much coal will we use not can we stop using it. And if we can make electricity cheap without coal then it will lower the price of steel. Allowing us to build more stuff. Coal will suffer short term but long term it will survive just a little less profitable I would bet.

And yet according to this article and this wikipage we won't run out of Uranium or Thorium for reactors any time soon (30,000 to 60,000 years) if we take the unnecessary measures to recycle as much of the fuel as possible. If we are not off this rock exploiting the solar systems resources by 30,000 years our species is doomed anyway. (i.e. a big dumb rock will hit us eventually.) So what's your point.

Oh crap!

From a Military perspective how to do you keep someone from just shooting down your space based solar array. It's pretty hard to stop a high velocity missile from impacting and destroying a large stationary object this is pretty fragile. I guess you could arm the array with lasers, guns, missiles and such and hope to detect and change the vector of an approaching impactor but that sounds expensive and probably in violation of our no space based weapons treaties. Though the whole array could probably be turned into a weapon so it might be out just by itself. Not saying we shouldn't build one though just fun to think about that.

Exactly it's a lot harder and more expensive to "bribe" 50 different regulators. It's why things like this should be left to the States. But business and Washington bureaucrats would hate that. However, while there are departments that could be decentralized such as Education, or maybe to lesser extent FCC (Radio travels a good distance and the Military has a want to regulate it.) there are other regulators that you can't really do that with. I mean can you imagine how pissed Tennessee would be if we broke up the Nuclear Regulatory committee and then say Arkansas decides that it's OK to build a nuclear power plant with lax safety standards across the Mississippi from Memphis. Think about that one for a second, it sounds to me like it might clearly fall into the purview of the federal government at that point.