I've found the same thing - TrackPoint/clit mice are great. Touchpads are not.
That being said, I find the scrolling feature of my touchpad to be far nicer than using the middle button on my TrackPoint to scroll.
Actually, that sort of kinetic scrolling is quite nice, and is the one redeeming thing about touchscreens.

Or, people can go into the bank, and speak with an actual teller.
Also, debit cards are the general solution, as they have lower fees than CCs, yet aren't cash.

Very true, but I'd go as far as to say you can charge money to /encode/ video, but should have no say over /decoding/ it. Therefor, the person encoding can choose to use a better, paid-for encoder, or a free one. The user won't care really, because they can decode it either way.

Actually, commercial power is usually cheaper than residential on a per-KWH basis, because they use more and get bumped into a lower cost bracket(if they aren't already there by being on a "commercial" account). The monthly cost, however, is much higher.

So, as a consumer I'm supposed to want to use a credit card because I'll spend more on overpriced crap, because I don't need to count my money as closely? Sounds more like I should /never/ use credit for that exact reason!

(That being said, as a consumer I know exactly what you're talking about - If I decide to use credit for a transaction, I'll buy more stuff. Especially at some place like Harbor Freight.)

I'd love to pay less for using cash at any retailer. As it is, plastic is easier(though I use debit most), but if it was sliightly cheaper, I'd be using cash.

Right now, I use Debit most, along with occasional Credit and Cash purchases. If any of the three options offered me a cheaper solution somewhere(even 1%), I'd use that one almost exclusively. I'm not too worried about my card being stolen - I take responsibility for my money. If it gets lost or stolen and someone empties my bank account, I will dispute it, but consider it a lesson learned. With cash, if it's gone, it's gone.

What I'd be most interested in is how merchants who run Debit transactions as a Credit(signature) will fair - will they all switch payment processors to someone who does (cheaper) debit transactions, or will they end up charging more for Debit as well? Only time will tell.

Either way, I think this is a good thing.

Only until you create rules for blocking that include it; it won't prevent the ad from /loading/, but it can stop it from displaying. And this sort of ad wouldn't allow for load tracking specifically, so it wouldn't matter - you're loading the mainpage anyway, right?

It would block proxy filters and adblockers, /if/ the ads were kept onsite(which is one of the main problems with most ads today - loading them from offsite takes ages). Otherwise, any browser-based tools will simply treat it like a image/object from the page which can then be blocked accordingly. It will be loaded, but the extra KB or so in the single main page request won't really affect load time on anything but dialup, and the time will be far less than if the image was seperate.

Honestly, you're right. I wish I had mod points.

True. Calibre can do both, however: By default, convert unencrypted .azw's to your favorite format, and with a plugin, strip any DRM first.

Calibre, which is FOSS and cross-platform btw.
And you can get a drm-stripping plugin for it too.

Well, /yeah/.

While not the best way of doing things, in the case of ODF spreadsheets, well, the code is available to be copied(or data extracted from) for use in a new implementation. I don't think anyone would have minded if MS gave out the source to that part of word, for reverse engineering purposes.

While your opinion may be true, and I'm not refuting it, there are a couple of considerations: One, in the real world, you have problems with students who *aren't* interested, and or *don't* try hard.
Two, just because someone can pass an exam, doesn't mean they know the material or know it well enough to be creative with it.