Flying megatons of dead dinosaur juice in close proximity of cryocooled oxidiser, mixed in with a good bunch of healthy hydrazine. Why would you ever be concerned about any impacts there.
Market regulates itself, right ?

Dear Microsoft,

Please make Windows 9 touch only, do not give anyone any menu, use the well known principle of most surprise for the user interface design, break all possible APIs, come up with another Uncommon Language Runtime, force me log into everything with the same username and password security be damned, put Bing on the way of actually getting to internet and if you could Ribbon me another two three screenfuls, all would be dandy.

Only by implementing these urgent measures will you guarantee your local fanbase of 2 people will stay very loyal. And the rest can move on to better things and world will be a better place.

Thanks,
Your local detractor.

If they fired a single engineer, they were likely not looking for a root cause. Companies don't get that screwed up because of engineers.

How about firing people that installed policies for engineers to NOT speak out about faults and banned them from even talking about it ? Who compiled the not to be used word list of "hindenburg", "death trap" etc ?

Maybe search for causes in your legal and PR and HR departments first. Oh, and execs.

So lets see. This is an NRC report that ONLY considered using SLS as the launch vehicle, and concluded that you cannot get to Mars with that, something has to be done differently.

How about _trying_ something different then for a change, stop trying to build redundant launch vehicles, we already have plenty, and actually invest in enabling technologies that DO get us to Mars.
Like, putting spacecraft together from modules like was done with ISS and other stations before that - except without involving costly human ops. How about refuelling the spacecraft on orbit. How about doing research on partial-g environments, and launching a centrifuge. How about sending some rats en route to Mars to study different radiation shielding approach effectiveness. The list is endless. Actually, NRC PRODUCED all the enabling technology roadmaps, they are available here :
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oc...
How about actually fricking following these roadmaps ( SLS is NOT in there ) and getting some stuff done ? Advanced radioisotope stirling generator that was outlined as the CRUCIAL enabling technology piece for future exploration ? Cancelled ! Funds are required to build a monster rocket to nowhere instead ...

But, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, no reason to expect a different result. Kill the waste, and start investing in future.

Phones are the least of the worries IMO. There are so many internet connected consumer electronics devices around that are based on some lightweight linux stack - SmartTVs, home routers, set-top boxes, NAS boxes, IP security cameras etc come to mind. These things will NEVER get patched because the development teams that put together the original firmware for the last years model are often even not around anymore. "Install Cyanogenmod" is not an option either.
With the "Internet of Things" wave raising, this will only get worse.

I'm not sure there is a reasonable solution there, zero day exploits will continue to be around, and companies will continue to build "embedded" devices that are not really designed to take frequent software updates.

Maybe there is a room on market for consumer oriented security certification brand, which basically tells the buyer - yes, we have reviewed and tested the software stack on this device, and its reasonably safe and sound and the company behind it is reasonably committed to keeping it secure ?

Anonymous posting on Slashdot could give an explanation to supersymmetry, detail a working cheap fusion reactor or do any number of more critical things than do another iteration of "ooh ooh baby". More likely it will be about hot grits though

Exactly. Whatever can "manage" between a single terminal, browser and editor window each with a bunch of tabs fast and stable is fine

Yep, thats what they were saying on Venus and Mars just a billion years ago.

You'll be guaranteed to have WebDirectX of some sort, and two very "popular" game publishers will immediately announce support for it for their two upcoming titles. My money is on Electronic Arts

Failing that, PowerShell has Invoke-WebRequest which can be aliased to look like wget. Now all we need is a permanent web address that is easy and quick to type that downloads both .. say http://save.me/

Right, UAC all over again !

They bought Bungie for Halo in 2000 already, lots of kids were running to BestBuy it