A wearable medical-alarm device that detects when I'm driving and when I'm dozing off (or legally drunk, or whatever) at the same time. Let it beep at me and let it do whatever per-programmed task I tell it to do if I don't respond.

This task may be to alert the car that the driver is impaired, so the car can take action (assuming the car is equipped to receive such a message). On the other hand, I may program it to call my doctor or the local police.

A device that can tell I'm driving can also tell my phone to send all calls to voicemail and defer notifying me of texts until I am no longer driving.

Don't they teach kids how to use a pencil in Germany?

Plus, pencil marks are easier to erase!

Seriously, when it comes to creating hard-to-copy data, it's cheaper to have a manual typewriter and a stack of paper in a secured, sound-proof room than it is to come up with an EM-proofed room with a computer. For making local copies, use a non-electronic, secured photocopier or non-electronic, secured microfilm/microfiche-creation system and a microfilm/microfiche reader. For applications where you don't need to do transmit documents off-site and where you don't need to be able to search the document, a non-electronic solution may be better than an electronic solution.

Another advantage of paper is if and when you do need to put it on a computer, it's not all that hard to do.

Paper-and-ink was the way most government documents - secret or otherwise - were created and stored until a few decades ago (yes, there is still a lot of new work being done on paper today inside of governments, but electronic copies exist for almost all new things that will have any lasting value, at least in industrialized countries).

For real-estate purposes, especially for 1-2 story buildings, a tethered powered aircraft should be fine. The question is, does the FAA claim jurisdiction over tethered flying machines flying at low altitudes (e.g. under a few hundred feet) and not close to "regulated airspace" like an airport or close to "an obvious federal jurisdiction" like crossing a state line or in the "airspace" of federal property, a U.S. Highway or Interstate Highway, or a navigable waterway?

If the FAA does claim jurisdiction over tethered flights that don't have any obvious "federal jurisdictional nexus" then it's ripe for a court challenge.

Sure, medicinal cannibas may have 250 active compounds, but how many of those - individually or in combination - are necessary to treat 95% of patients?

If we can identify the ones needed to treat the vast majority of patients and synthesize them or find a bio-factory (e.g. yeast) that we can control much better than the traditional source (the plant), we can deliver drugs that are more pure and more consistent than your average joint or brownie, yet still do the job for almost all patients.

If I get cancer and need this for medical reasons, I would much prefer to take a drug that has a known, consistent potency and known, consistent nominally-inactive ingredients than something I cut off a plant.

As I said, sometimes the problems are not technical in nature.

Maybe back when the maintenance window was created it was created for a valid technical reason, BUT technology moved on and management didn't.

In other words, in some environments, the technical people won't have a sympathetic ear if they ask to cancel the off-hours maintenance window simply because of local politics or the local management, BUT if the maintenance gets botched and services are still down or under-performing through normal business hours, nobody outside of IT will notice.

One way to prepare for failure is to have someone there who can at least recognize the failure and wake someone up in time to fix it.

Another way to prepare for failure is to have a system that is redundant enough that a part could go down and it wouldn't be more than a minor annoyance to users or management.

There are other ways to prepare for failure, but these are two common ones.

Most offices need a "go to guy" for IT issues. If you can "be that guy" it makes you much more employable.

Also, in you social clubs, religious organizations, etc. if you are known as the "IT guy" people can call when the church computer goes on the fritz, it can help you with networking for your next paid job or your next freelance gig.

I expect the Tea Party and libertarian-leaning Democrats to be up in arms about this.

I expect "business Republicans" and non-libertarian Democrats to see this as A Good Thing or at least a "neutral thing, but serving a good purpose" thing.

Let the sparks fly.

... apart to see how they worked then try to put them back together.

They question should be: Why doesn't every curious kid grow up to be a hacker (in the good sense of the word)?

I would like to read up on this case. Links or citations of news, magazine, or journal articles about the the case would be useful. Contemporary references would be best. If those aren't available, court case information or the equivalent information if it was decided by the USPTO or then-equivalent agency would be helpful.

Thanks.

I don't have an answer to your technical question but know that my prayers are with you and your family.

... would be having the guy stand at the center of an explosion that would be big enough and quick enough to vaporize their brain or at least their brain-stem.

Short of that, a carefully-aimed sufficiently-large-caliber bullet is probably the quickest most humane death.

Unfortunately, the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" quotient of using explosives is way too high and the margin for error in aiming the gun for the "perfectly humane" shot is also much greater than zero.

In both cases, there is also the violation of the moral rights of the condemned person's family to give the person a burial looking as close to life-like as any other corpse. In other words, the state shouldn't unnecessarily disfigure the person's body.

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By the way, for execution purposes I would consider "instant death" to be "perfectly humane" when it comes to executions. Yes, I know that some other forms of death last long enough for brain endorphins to be released, giving a supposedly-more-pleasant death. And yes, when I die I do hope it takes long enough to get that endorphin rush. But if we are to have executions, those being executed are entitled to a humane, as-painless-as-possible death. They are not necessarily entitled to go out on an endorphin high.

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For the sake of argument let's assume that the person is guilty of a capital offense and according to applicable laws qualifies for the death penalty. I'm not going to get into the obvious inhumanity of executing someone who doesn't deserve to die nor am I going to get into the argument about whether capital punishment is inherently inhumane or not.

"License plate must say CWBYNEAL"

would have been funnier than the funny-hat option.