I learned basic calculus in high school. I just completed a course in my first semester of college in multi-variable calculus. I didn't go to most of the lectures because I've grown to learn most heavily from books. It was a more efficient use of my time to learn what I needed to learn on my own, so I skipped the lectures and studied. In theory, if I were sufficiently motivated, I wouldn't need to go to college to become an aerospace engineer. Honestly, I think I would learn best in an apprenticeship.

In any case, your argument is reducto ad adsurdum and has the simple fallacy that you omit the possibility of motivated self learners that hit the books.

I'd go for the fellowship if it had more money attached to it.

if you do this, it will probably be re-installed in the next automatic update.

Partly because I have never done so before, I will be modifying it directly and neutering its code. This way it still registers as installed and won't update.

I find the census troubling because undoubtedly the data could be subpoenaed by a federal judge. Its not that I do anything illegal, its just that I like to reduce my footprint.

Really? Is this new? Comcast does this to consumers all the time, but I can't go out and fine anyone. And can you really get a fair day in court against the fed? I don't think so. Shame on Oracle for taking advantage of the blind bureaucracy, and shame on the federal government for expecting special treatment.

Depending on the style of printer, it may be possible to forensically recover the didacted information.
While I was unable to find any such studies in the 30 seconds I spent googling this, I have a few thoughts. If this was printed on a laser printer, then a charge was used to layer toner fluid on the paper. Then, a black marker was used to over-write the toner. The toner would have shielded the paper from the black ink. Therefore, a high resolution scan of the image should reveal that the reverse side of the paper is slightly lighter on the inside of the printing of each character where the marker was used.
Of course, we would need an original, not a digital or even a copy.

Create some realistic looking Russian spy emails and email yourself. Use google translator to put it in russian at the top, and in English at the bottom. Put in some nice russian looking pictures, and make it all about the coming invasion.
Close with, "Reminder, please destroy this message after receiving it."
I promise that the FBI will come and find you, laptop in hand, at which point you calmly withdraw your complaint form from the FBI and the police and say "thank you for finally returning my laptop. I hope that in the future I won't have to resort to trickery in order to get you to do your job."

Link: apple vs. microsoft @ wikipedia
While it wasn't a supreme court case, there is already judicial precedent stating that you can create your own derivative software to accomplish a similar task as someone else's patented work so long as you are creating meaningful improvements and you make your own source code.
The bottom line is that nothing is being stolen, someone is simply making a competitor product. And its Foss. Like a Boss.

According to Wikileaks, this is a load of bunk.
There is a headline on the main page at http://www.wikileaks.org/ which is titled "wired's war on wikileaks continues" and links to the source article for this page. He also claims briefly that they are in the process of "updating."
Just goes to show, ALWAYS check your sources, you never know if there is something strange going on.

Why has no one mentioned the possibility of home-brew firm-ware? Most of these companies have developer kits, and those that do not... well... it didn't stop anyone from inventing firmware for the modem and router.

If a community gets together using a standard developer kit for a brand, it is only a matter of months before they have fully functional software that records directly into your choice of open source video format. And if community developers can do it, the camera companies can do it better. By no means are we "trapped," if this licensing issue becomes a major problem, a solution will be made.

I can NOT believe no one has made a japanese tourist joke yet....

Is it a purely southern phenomenon that, when a child is afraid to come down from a tree, you encourage them to come down by throwing things at them? The passerby could have done worse...