Because they "dare" question financial axioms like "greed is good" and infinite growth? Or because they agree with the scientific consensus that global warming exists, man has caused it and we should do something about it?
I'd rather say that you're screwed if you're living in a state with a two party system and it's considered naive to vote on any other party.
You calculated the expected noice and simply add enough error correcting redundancy to deal with it. You can use this for example:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Reed%E2%80%93Solomon_error_correction
Ah, you should go out and tell people how the patent system is *supposed* to be used then since apparently the problem is that people have misunderstood the whole thing. I'm really tired of the "the software patent system really works in theory, but people/organization are not using it correctly" argument. Let's pretend that the argument makes sense, then we could also argue that "the communist system really works in theory, but people wasn't using it correctly".
If a system can be abused it's broken. You can blame the lawyers and patent troll companies all you want. At the end of the day they just play by the rules of the system.
What's up with the mass media headlines? Reading the summary actually makes me dumber. It talks about "computers" like they are sentient and grades the tests instead. Having professors first strictly defining the rules, entering them into software and having a computer evaluate those rules is still "professors grading the essays". It's self evident that the grading is better if it's more strictly defined.
Wow, I can build a house faster with this hammer. Headline: Hammers Could Build Houses Faster Than Construction Workers (In Cyberspace)
We warn the reader in advance that the proof presented here depends on a clever but highly unmotivated trick. -- Howard Anton, "Elementary Linear Algebra"
