I don't exactly understand how decrying Federal budget largesse when it comes to NASA is "on topic" where decrying Federal budget largesse when it comes to defense spending or social spending is not.

The F-35 is wholly unnecessary and spectacularly expensive. That seems very on-topic to me.

Because it's incredibly unlikely to ever have a nice design ready to go for future plans when Congress cuts funding. *cough* (Saturn I-B / Skylab)

I guess I don't see how this is different from the Saturn 1-B launch vehicle that was only used to launch a manned capsule once (Apollo 7) until the rest of the Saturn V launches were cancelled, and they used the surplus 1-Bs for Skylab crew launches.

Sometimes it's perfectly fine to have a purpose-specific launcher for early flights needed to test stuff. Would we have the same people grousing about using too big of a rocket to just fly crew modules in orbit if they skipped the smaller SLS variant? "Ermahgherd, they're launching hardware capable of going to the moon when they're only going to LEO! What a waste! etc."

Well, for one thing, the equal protection clause is part of the 14th Amendment, and has nothing to do with the Founding Fathers, as it was ratified in the 1860s or thereabouts - about a century after the Founding Fathers did their thing.

But why would that matter, just because it invalidates your whole statement?

It wasn't too long ago that the ThinkPad T-series had a magnesium cage inside protecting all the parts, and stainless steel hinges that would not break. Don't know if that's still the case now, but Lenovo kept to that when HP and Dell went with cheap plastic shit that would wear out through normal use, much less any form of accident or abuse.

Yeah, it's a pretty radical decision to state that the equal protection clause should actually provide for equal protection under the law.

Yeah, I forgot that the standard operational context for Windows is to have it do 85 things you don't want it to for every 10 you do.

Guess I've been using OS X and Linux too long where the default is to get what you ask for, and very little else.

But it's not the State establishing the exchange, which is what the argued-about language says.

I think everyone is in agreement that the exchange is being established, but the mealy-mouthed language of the law allows for this challenge based on what entity established it.

I'm no lawyer, and I'm glad the decision went the way it did. But clearly 9 Supreme Court Justices thought that it wasn't explicit enough, so they chose to hear the case.

I'm also glad that this is hopefully the last bitchy little petulant lawsuit regarding this legislation.

I'm thinking that the missing link in his logic is that if the State decides not to 'establish' an exchange, then the Federal exchange is tacitly authorized to be the 'established' exchange of the State.

Of course, that's stated absolutely nowhere in the text of the law, but that's probably the link.

Because Dice owns Slashdot, and approves the front page posting of click-bait all the time now.

You haven't noticed?

I guarantee it will be in addition.

Why screw the user over once for money, when you can screw the user twice in the same sitting for more money?

It is, in no way, okay or acceptable.

Best case:
"We're releasing a new version that fixes MANY NASTY EXPLOITED SECURITY HOLES and by the way fucks around with your browser settings. If you don't install it, you get constant nagging to update, and if you do install it, you'd better pay attention or we will install a bunch of shit you don't want."

More likely case:
"We're releasing a new version that fixes MANY NASTY EXPLOITED SECURITY HOLES and by the way fucks around with your browser settings. If you don't install it, you get constant nagging to update, and if you do install it, we install a bunch of horseshit shovelware that there is no chance to prevent."

Fuck that bullshit. Java is quickly becoming the next flash - a framework of yesteryear that has outlived it's usefulness.

Vibrant?

What the fuck does that even mean?

Just because Sun put in the first round of crapware doesn't make Oracle completely absolved - they could have changed it to opt-in rather than opt-out, or removed it entirely. And they're definitely not helping by making my browser more "vibrant and advanced" by jerking with my search settings to use an engine I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO USE.

This one is completely on Samsung.

There is nothing stopping them from getting WHQL certification of their OEM drivers and submitting them to Microsoft. If their drivers are written properly (with proper hardware identification strings for PCI / USB / ACPI devices) then they will apply before generic drivers, and this isn't even a problem.

Funny how we don't hear about this from Acer / Dell / HP / Lenovo / etc...

You assume there is still a functioning transmitter after the blackout ends.