So, the auto industry is still making Pintos with exploding gas tanks?

Companies can and do meet the desires of their customers when there is competition and independent data for comparison. I agree that companies do abusive things when they believe that they will not be caught or can not be economically forced to change (monopoly), but the auto industry makes cars that are much safer today largely because many consumers buy safety.

I value human life, but I understand that people make choices about safety every day. While a government regulated minimum safety level may be good public policy, companies can and will provide the safety their customers demand if customers have choice and data.

You can certainly believe that every company will screw you each chance that they get, but that level of pessimism about the actions of others will not guide you to a better situation. Certainly the article here is saying that the TSA has said "oops" with people's lives many times. It is only a lack of terrorist intent that has kept these government failures from contributing to loss of lives.

Companies are certainly out to make a buck, but perhaps the problem here is a willingness to accept government incompetence because of a fear of corporate incompetence. Personally I would rather let corporations handle security screening because the economic pressure has the possibility of making security a selling point. Economic and consumer pressure has little to no effect on government security.

Lets look at safety history.

In the auto industry, the government moved first to require seat belts and passive restraints. After all the public would never buy a car with safety features. But ... after many years, we did start to see cars advertized based on their safety features. When the public values safety and can look at independent data (government crash tests, insurance claim rates) they can and do make decisions where safety is a factor and sometimes safety is the deciding factor. So a free market of security features can occur where there is competition and independent data. (The government still sets a minimum security level, but car makers routinely exceed it because it helps them make money.)

In the air line industry, El Al still runs their own security independent of the TSA. Their customers have a choice and deliberately choose to use an air line with higher security.

So tell me again, why is it that free market economics cannot drive effective and increasing security?

The Library of Congress review that resulting in approval of jail-breaking is a part of the DMCA. So there is no question of precedence. The DMCA said that the Library of Congress was allowed to make this decision. The LOC did.

So what would it take to actually build an HDCP re-recording device? Does it require custom silicon from a fab, or can it be built using a FPGA and a bread board?

What a waste. Even the first page has an obvious error:

That tool kit re-entered the atmosphere in August of 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidemarie_Stefanyshyn-Piper#Lost_tool_bag_during_spacewalk Come on guys. Do some fact checking.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

This will go nowhere unless additional cash is added to NASA's budget.

So what you are saying is that instead of investing in space technology so that we can see spin-offs in other areas, we could be investing in bike technology that spins-off to space technology.

That's not how it's suppose to work. It's suppose to be only space that has spin-off technologies. /sarcasm

We really need to realize that any tech that pushes the envelope will have spin-off technologies.

“We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” - Wernher von Braun

No, the headline is "Microsoft bullies FOSS with patents and conspiratorial coersion."

When Microsoft patents obvious things, then uses those patents to threaten law suits, that is a threat.

If Microsoft was competing by building great software, we would be having a different conversation. This conversation is about Microsoft competing without building software.

Too late. That tool bag is already back to earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidemarie_Stefanyshyn-Piper#Lost_tool_bag_during_spacewalk

It is designed and built for show, not for real testing. The Ares 1X is just a Potemkin rocket to make a good impression on congress and the American public. Any test data is just incidental.

There are so many things that need to be tested, but this launch tests almost nothing. Unfortunately this is what I have come to expect of NASA: good PR, solid engineering, poor vision.

Please let the president and NASA administrators choose the Augustine flexible path using EELV rockets so that we can get something accomplished in addition to burning money.

Optical scan machines have software bugs too!

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/election-transparency-project-finds-ballot-counting-bug

A single significant innovation: The RIAA Curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization for correct playback of vinyl records.

Now, of course, they did patent the RIAA equalization curve so that others would have to pay money to make their records sound good, but it was a significant innovation.