VeriSign, maintainter of net's DNS, warns it was repeatedly hacked

I wonder what all that "certificate insurance" they sell is really worth.

It's worth plenty-- to VeriSign.

I'm often amazed how people pay for useless things,... Like bottled water, brand name condiments (the generics are manufactured in the same 3rd party factories during production run breaks/interruptions), proprietary operating systems, etc.

@JaseP: Bottled water isn't "useless" any more than any other drink. People want to drink things that taste good, and not things that taste horrible. With water, the only way to get good-tasting water is to 1) get a Brita or similar and filter it yourself, 2) Get a reverse-osmosis system (this will surely work better than the Brita), 3) buy water from vending machines that do reverse-osmosis (this is what I do: $1 per 5 gallon bottle), or 4) (useful if you've run out of the other options because you're on the road or something) buy bottled water. There aren't any other choices I know of to get drinkable water.

Depends where you live. My water at home is well water. What you pay for out of a vending machine isn't nearly as good (or good for you). That said, I do have $3200 worth of water treatment equipment. But part of that was purchased with the house. Only costs me a $5/40lb bag of salt once a month & a negligible amount of electricity to power it.

If I was going to become one of those, 3-4 glasses of water a day types, I'd invest $12 in a decent thermos bottle. Spending $3 a day for a plastic bottle just doesn't make sense, if all you're drinking is water.

Quoting:Only costs me a $5/40lb bag ...

We have the same but the cost of bag is $4/40lb. Actually, it is $3.94 at Walmart. :-)

@JaseP: Right, your $3k+ of equipment is like someone installing a RO system, only even more heavy-duty and costly. Plus, well water is generally different from the undrinkable garbage that comes out of the tap in many places, such as here in Phoenix.