No it's not. If I can copy the thing you're selling with a few clicks of a keyboard, you don't really have a product. I fully support inventors getting rewarded for their work, but that's NOT what the patent system does.

You don't seem to get it. No one wants the NSA. The American people have been polled, and overwhelmingly despise the NSA and what it does. Local and state governments have publicly declared their actions criminal, and Congress has overwhelmingly decried their activities. But they're still here and there's literally nothing we can do about it. That should tell you something.

It's like we're all in a coffee shop, and a man armed with a 12 gauge just barged in to rob the place and demanded we all act normally. Even the cashier is nodding and offering him a latte... but in reality we're all glancing at each other wondering who's going to be brave enough to clock him over the head with their coffee mug first. There's one feeling that I think we've all felt in this country over the past 10yrs or so, and I think that feeling is best described as "Unease"

This explains why Google came out with cardboard. To make it clear, just how stupid this patent is.

I agree for the most part. I did, however, have a small grant based on the school I picked when I went. I had to say "yes" or "no" to, etc... I could see myself calling them and telling them to give it to someone else, etc... I think it's rather unlikely any particular person would find themselves in a situation like that. But there were 800 affected people... the chances go way up once you see that.

Too be honest, it's been decades since I went to school, so I'm probably not the best resource in knowing how admissions are handled now-a-days.

There is no legal obligation to encrypt.
There is no culpability if the data is lost.
It costs time and money to secure it.

Why would they bother?

They'd send a couple of capsules the size of a nickle into our atmosphere from outside the ort cloud. They'd either be laced with a virus to kill us all, antimater or some other yet-to-be-discovered nastiness and it'd be all over in seconds. We'd have no idea if they didn't want us to have one.

I suspect those that turned down other university offers for this one, only to find out they weren't accepted and no have no-where to go have basis for a lawsuit. And what about those that had scholarships at other schools and lost them? Mistakes like this, and such a critical point in your life, affect the whole of the rest of your life. It could change the entire trajectory of your career.

I maintain a wiki used by 3000 non-techie people as you put it. You don't give people enough credit. Word is not exactly "East" to use. lol

Well, actually, the universe is infinite in all directions according most. They're basing their math here on a given volume, "The observable universe" which, makes sense given how relativity works. You know, it's the whole cat paradox. If you cannot observe it, it does not exist, etc...

No, they are basing it on Plank Length: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
A unit of measure derived specifically from universal constants, the speed of light, the Planck constant, and the gravitational constant.

So it's not some arbitrary unit of measure as you suggest. It's the universes unit of measure. (assuming our current model of the universe holds) It's the smallest unit of measure that has any meaning in the real world.

Um, your problem is trying to version control office.
Stop using it.
Put up a wiki.
You're done and just saved the company several hundred thousand dollars a year in licensing.

I was in Radio shack a few months ago looking for a Mic for my HAM Radio. The guy at the counter said "We don't sell radio stuff like that..." I said "But you're radio shack!" He laughed at me "No-body comes to the Mall to buy Radios" I finally said "The only person you currently have standing in your store came here for a Radio, you might want to rethink your inventory" and walked out. Morons.

No it's not. You can hire a person with a degree in computer security starting around $40k a year. You can get someone with 10yrs+ experience for under $100k/yr. Then its a matter of doing what they say, and not letting executives over-rule every inconvenient policy they put into place.

Right, and I even agree with them. But in this case you're not just making a choice that puts your kid at risk. You're also making a choice that puts my kid at risk, which is where it crosses the line. If a vaccine were 100% effective, I'd agree with them on choice. But they're not, so they should be mandatory.