If you don't trust your CA chain then do cert pinning. Either way you need to know you're talking to the right server, pretending that's impossible so it's not worth trying is a cop out.

I'm certainly not one of the beautiful people but I've frequented several of those :) My memory is that Twilo had a pretty legendary door policy back in the day - I know the only time I got in was because I got on a list.

Then again, ordering something on amazon every 2-3 days already seems borderline compulsive behaviour to me too.

How often do you go to a physical store? More than twice a week? Now multiply that to cover a whole family.

I personally go to a physical store for non food items maybe once a month. My wife goes maybe once a week as she gets stuff for the house/kid which isn't easy to get online.

And I mentioned this in another reply - but a big part of it is not having to think. Let's say I make 100 orders in a year. That's $1 per order for shipping. Now, you're right, I could probably get some of those free. And there are other's I'd pay say $8 for 2 day. And yet others I'd pay $15 for overnight. You know what? If it takes even 1 minute per order to figure out which is which $100 a year is CHEAP - my time is worth a lot more than that.

Because we're not all as organized as you? :)

In fact we do that, the subscribe & save system amazon have allows us to setup recurring deliveries of the stuff we predictably need (baby supplies, cosmetics, etc). But other than groceries we buy pretty much everything online, and most of that from amazon. Not having to think about delivery times or prices is what allows us to do that. Having to worry about whether it would be delivered in time, or whether spending $10 to ship a $10 widget is worth it is a waste of mental energy I just don't need.

You're completely ignoring speed. My family buy tons of stuff from Amazon (typically 2-3 orders per week, sometimes more) and so of course we could cancel prime and get free shipping pretty easily. But waiting a week+ for delivery? Not interested. Which means we'd be spending $5-10 per order for 2-day, which would pay for prime in maybe a month.

Seriously? Software has bugs. Aviation software has bugs. Planes crash. It sucks but it's the truth, 100% perfection in any non-trivial thing (whether hard or soft) is impossible. The list of examples is long (think Ariane 5, MPL, various F-22 crashes, Chinook ZD576, Osprey, etc).

Effective risk management is predicated on understanding that fact and designing systems to be fault tolerant. It's my understanding that most flight control software runs with redundant non-similar implementations which vote on the correct decision to try and handle spurious results. Why would you bother with that if there are no bugs?

Believe me, the US CBP would not take kindly to that. Remember, different laws apply at the border (see: searching laptops) and they don't have to detain you, they can just throw you back on a plane to wherever you came from. It's generally wise to be pleasant and courteous if you don't what them to really ruin your day.

"I saw someone running into the street; they didn't stop and now their guts are all over the road."

People love to hate on them because they aren't unsure of which scientific authority to believe in, they are choosing Jenny Fucking McCarthy over every single scientific authority - and at the same time putting both their kids and every other kid in their area at serious risk.

Sure there was one fraudulent study done which may have confused some people, but that was exposed years ago and people still aren't getting their kids vaccinated despite huge amounts of publicity. It's unbelievable levels of stupidity and selfishness and I'm not going to give anyone a pass.

You must be seeing a different site than me. I'd say the comments take maybe 70% of my screen width. There's a pretty wide margin on each side which could certainly be reduced a little, and then a column on the right with the search box, poll, and a bunch more panels. There's certainly some wasted space, but nothing like you imply. And nothing is double line spaced.

FYI, Chrome/Win.

You could say the same for any library in any language. Hell, you could say the same for a compiler. Or an assembler.

And I've seen plenty of technical people with the same problem. Companies have bad employees at every level - what separates good companies from bad is how many and how they're dealt with.

So wait - you think reporting a crime to the police so they can investigate it is "tattling"? What are you? 8 years old?

You see some thugs mugging an old woman - move along, none of your business. You see someone breaking into your neighbor's house - leave it alone, I'm sure they value their privacy.

I simply can't understand the mentality that says if you see someone doing something wrong you just let them carry on. Baffling.

Well obviously :) It is possible to get decent ensemble sounds with some work, and piano is pretty well covered these days. But good luck with solo woodwind or strings, the expression takes so long to program.

That said, if I just need some legato violins to pad out a track I'm not going to hire a quartet :)

If you want to record audio, use synths, etc, I'd recommend sticking with one of the big boys: Ableton, Cubase, Sonar, Logic, FL Studio, Pro Tools. Compatibility is a big deal and unless you have a compelling reason to pick something more niche it'll likely cause you more pain than it's worth. Synths are all either VST for PC or AU for Mac, and they work in all the DAWs. You won't want just one, most of us end up with 10's or even hundreds. If you're looking to do anything realistic in terms of orchestral or acoustic sounds expect to spend $$.

The only thing you mention which is a little specialist is notation support - I know Cubase does a decent job of that and some of the others (FL, Ableton) don't support it at all. Something to research.