I wonder when netbook makers will incorporate 3G in their products. Seeing the specs of some smartphones I found myself wondering where the line between them and netbooks should be drawn. Apart from screen size, the difference is small. So, if Asus, Acer and othernetbook makers start to include a slot for a SIM card, the difference will definitively only be in size.

We don't need to convert cropland into pulpwood production. The idea, IMHO, is to use crop waste (which is discarded) into ethanol.

Much of sugar-cane production isn't used for ethanol, but burned because it's cellulose, and bacteria find it hard to degrade cellulose into its component sugar blocks.

If you get a cheap way to do this, you can produce much more ethanol per square meter. Be it from beet, soy, rice, sugar-cane or the grass you cut from your lawn.

Just a few tweaks: Two or more election officials who can count. A box with a slot that can be sealed. Scrutineers from the various parties involved to spot check for irregularities. An accurate list of who is eligible to vote.
Well, you just described the Brazilian voting system. The only difference is that there is no box with slot.

I'm not saying that our system is perfect. Read the previous discussion here in Slashdot after that elections... But when you have people from the various parties checking on the spot and during the accounting of the machines, it makes much more difficult to tamper with.

One thing that I read in the original article, that shocked me was "workers often forget to install the [tamper-proof] tape or take proper action when they discover that the tape over a compartment has been broken"!!! Come on! What is this??? And these are the guys mentioned above that receive $100 a day for working there???

Sorry, but the problem is not in the machines...