I don't think Microsoft can rely on the customer being "stuck" with Win8 and MS Office much longer, according to StatCounter mobile is now 24%, tablets 6% and the desktop only 70% of web browsing. Subtract a few percent for Mac/Linux and more than one in three is no longer using Windows to browse the web. Of course web browsing != general computing but people are going to want solutions for the devices they're using, if there's an app for it they'd probably rather use that than haul out their laptop. I guess most of those 30% have a PC they could use if they wanted to, but I'm not sure casual users will in the future. I think the "PC-less" digital life is quickly becoming possible and that significant parts of the population will find they don't really need a PC. Microsoft has the enterprise by the balls, consumers much less so.

The problem is that many of the dealers in these states requiring franchisees for consumer sales also have local dealers who have a lock on who can become an automobile dealership within that state. In other words, even if Tesla was somehow able to recruit somebody who wanted to be an independent franchisee and was very friendly to Tesla, that state would prohibit that franchisee from opening the store even if they were a citizen of that state. The number of dealership licenses is limited in that state, thus Tesla is literally forced to sell a franchise to their competitor who in turn has no legal requirement to even sell that brand of automobile.

Quite literally those dealers can sit on the franchise and do nothing. They can also demand a percentage of sales done "in their territory" (aka anything sold on-line) even though they have invested nothing into even trying to market those cars other than the nominal purchase of the franchise.

This is the corruption Tesla is fighting. This is why it is so sinister and what really is at stake because it is local businessmen in these states who are trying to squeeze Tesla for a cut of the profits.

They are allowed direct to consumer sales. It is the franchise agreements which prohibit the direct sales instead, but that is an automaker-dealer relationship that was mutually agreed upon in advance and has nothing to do with statutory laws that are passed by a state legislature. These automakers also can't arbitrarily change that contract, so they are stuck with that provision unless they get the dealers to agree to new terms.

Tesla isn't even prohibited from selling automobiles in Texas or other states, all they are prohibited from doing is setting up a local sales office and showroom as well as offering local support services like parts sales over the counter or a repair shop that the customer can drop off the vehicle and then come back once it is repaired.

Texans, for instance, can even drive to New Mexico or Louisiana and get their Model S repaired. The state is merely making it very inconvenient if you want the car repaired in Austin or Dallas.

No, states are explicitly denied the power to regulate commerce between states. They can still regulate businesses that operate within their state and engage in commerce with citizens of that state.

That is precisely what these state governments are doing, and what Tesla is trying to do within those states as well, thus Tesla is subject to the regulations of those respective state governments. Tesla is trying to build brick & mortar stores in several states as a way to increase sales, thus by building the store and applying for a local business permit to sell automobiles they subsequently subjected themselves to the regulatory authority of that state government.

Texas still can't stop Tesla from selling automobiles to citizens of Texas, but the Texas legislature can require only franchisees are permitted to have actual buildings containing automobiles available for purchase. Or in the case of Tesla they may not offer any automobiles for sale at their showrooms. Freedom of speech permits Tesla to hand out a flier that links to the Tesla website, but that is the only end-run currently allowed with regards to the Texas law.

I'll also note that the 10th Amendment does not say anything about interstate commerce. That clause is in Article I, in the list of powers that are explicitly granted to Congress. I could also go into the semantics of "regulation", as I don't think "regulation" as written by the founding fathers is the same word you think it is here. Regardless, you are simply wrong with your assertion and no court has ever interpreted the Interstate Commerce Clause as broadly as you have presuming state legislators lack any authority even over intrastate commerce as well.

You can get much better than two orders of magnitude savings off of conventional rocketry alone. Also note that fuel cost is one of the least important costs of rockets, even though the rocket equation requires you to carry that basically meaningless cost stuff up with you. What makes rocket fuel expensive, in orbit, is the cost of getting it there in the first place.

For example, with a Space Shuttle launch, the catering budget for the press corps covering the launch was more than the cost of the fuel used for the launch, at least for the liquid fuels being used. Far more was spent simply on the general labor that was used to essentially rebuild the Space Shuttle after each launch... especially the SSMEs.

I'll admit that perhaps some other alternative approaches to spaceflight including the classic Orion nuclear fission launch system might end up being cheaper and more efficient (definitely NERVA), but you need to consider infrastructure costs and regular maintenance as well when considering these other alternatives for getting into space.

Space Elevators in particular must be made with a mythical substances that as of right now simply does not exist. This Unobtainium must exhibit properties that no known substance has ever been demonstrated to hold at astronomical scales of construction that have never been attempted in the entire history of humanity. I also think that infrastructure costs for a space elevator are likely to be far more than proponents claim they will be, and more importantly a space elevator is completely incompatible with any other launch system. I think it is that last point which completely destroys at least a terrestrial-based space elevator.

A space elevator on the Moon is much easier to construct and can be done with high tensile strength materials that currently exist, and it wouldn't conflict with most other transportation systems including rail guns and most classical orbital inclinations that could avoid at least a few space elevators on the Moon. Some larger asteroids might especially be excellent candidates for space elevators, so I don't think the concept is completely devoid of consideration.

I am merely suggesting that an Earth-based space elevator is a hopeless dream until we have several hundred years of additional technological development in material sciences alone.

Oooh, car analogy time! This is like a kit car where you use a Chevy or Ford engine and transmission. Very few hobbyists go further than that, and if they do, they aren't hobbyists by the time they're done :)

If 3 out 4 Hulu subscribers were foreign, you'd think Hulu would have opened up in foreign markets by now. :)

On the other hand if it's in the 30-70% range then I'd say they're absolutely justified in cracking down on it.

I'd be VERY surprised if its much more than the 0.3% to 0.7% range.

Hollywood owns Hulu, jointly owned by several studios and broadcasters, in fact. The idea was to own and control content distribution of TV over the internet while avoiding fracturing the market, and they've done a pretty good job of it.

Also, Hulu is ad-supported. If I was one of their 'sponsors', I might be a bit annoyed that Hulu was billing me for ads delivered to countries where I don't even do business.

You should factor that into your advertising budget.

Some percentage of people your ads get shown to aren't interested in your product and never will be, that some percentage don't have enough money to buy it, that some percentage are foreign tourists staying at a friends house who don't speak English and can't even under stand your ad, that some percentage looked away and muted the volume when your ad came on, some percentage ...

really if the idea that some fraction are foreigners jumping through hoops to watch your ads offends you I don't know how you cope.

They are pretty much the same thing, other than the unit cost of the vehicles involved.

You would rather than the country you live in be on the shit list of the U.S. government as opposed to being on a list of supporters?

You nailed it with regards to the Obama administration with regards to space policy issues in particular, and defense issues in general. Apathy is the only word you really need to understand.

On the positive side for SpaceX and Elon Musk in particular, he was a major donor to the Obama campaigns in both 2008 and 2012, which I'm sure has paid off somewhat here as well. I'm not saying that Elon Musk endorsed Obama, but he definitely saw a rising star and made sure he was covered with a legitimate bribe (*ahem* campaign contribution) making sure that his bases were well covered. In other words, a proper businessman who knows he can be screwed over by an arbitrary government if he doesn't curry favor immediately with those on the way up.

.... that you can fill with algae and harvest much faster and easier than solar farms not to mention the algae also provide their own energy storage. The algae also can be converted into hydrocarbon chains..... that can in turn make gasoline and other petroleum-based products and fit into the existing energy distribution channels.

That is the reason why the ISS has a 300 kW power supply (essentially similar to the power production of a small municipal power plant for a couple of neighborhoods).

This is also one of the things that anybody talking about space-based solar power singularly refuses to acknowledge, and for reasons I really don't understand other than the insane costs that were involved with installing that much power into space in one place. If you want to understand the challenges and trade-offs of large scale power production in space, you must be a blathering idiot if you ignore the ISS as a data point in any of your calculations. The ISS power supply is a real example of a real device that is producing power for actual applications, having done so for a lengthy period of time.

The next step is to have other space-based assets that need large quantities of power, and regardless that implies trying to get the cost of launch into space much cheaper no matter how else you cut it. Extraterrestrial mining operations are something I expect to see by the beginning of the next century, but I'm not expecting much progress before then. We have a long way to go before something like asteroid-based Silicon is used for manufacturing photocells in deep space projects, where I also expect to see Martian colonization well before that happens.

Too bad there are no southern Californian companies employing rocket scientists these days... OH WAIT!

(Yes, that was probably the joke.)