Sounds like an idea that has been had before. SeaCode in 2005.

Many commenters have said this already, I just wanted to add my vote. This applies to life as a whole, not just email - People will always try to pass on their problems to you. Don't accept the burden. Nothing good can come of it. You are not being nice and helpful, you are enabling their bad behavior. If an IRS agent sent me an email saying that I forgot a deduction, and would I mind if they just tacked it on to my return before sending out the refund check, I wouldn't bother spending all those hours checking my math next year.

Not sure if my experience is common or rare, but since moving to California in 1993 and registering as a voter and a driver (the two lists from which they pull prospective jurors, as I understand it), I have been called for jury duty every 3 years like clockwork. You can opt out if you have already served in the last 3 years, but it seems like every time my anniversary passes I get another summons to serve. Furthermore, most of the time I have been called to sit in the jury pool in a courtroom, and on most of those occasions I have been seated as a primary or alternate juror. If I am counting correctly, I have deliberated on 5 cases (one criminal and 4 civil) and was a juror in one criminal mistrial that never made it to the deliberation phase. I recently received my latest summons, and for the first time returned it with an excuse: I am presently the stay-at-home care giver for our two kids and finding child care for 2 weeks would be a serious hardship. I don't feel bad at all about opting out this time. As for those who casually brag about getting out of jury duty by claiming partiality or just by being an engineer (since the conventional wisdom is that neither side in a trial wants someone who can piece the facts together on their own), I call bull. Every judge I have ever sat before has grilled prospective jurors that claim they have some reason to be partial to one side or the other. They always end with the bottom line question: "Do you think you can be impartial in this case?" And answering no doesn't guarantee a dismissal from the jury pool.

Check out "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove. Some hyper-racist South Africans bring AK-47s and mortars to General Lee's army and win the war for the South.

+1 Coastal CA. In San Diego it has been overcast for weeks. It might get up into the high 60's today. Waiting on the Southern Hemisphere to chime in about how this is a US east coast-centric poll. Oh, wait, there it is above.

Conversely the different-sized bills from other countries have always confounded my American-sized wallet. I don't expect any sympathy.

That's because Patrick Stewart was educated in all the best shools.

I get a kick out of the "there's something about a book" comment, which I see frequently. Presumably, some e-book designer will put "shall include that special something" in their high-level design document, and if their ID department meets the requirement they will instantly remove that advantage from paper books and sell their e-reader like hotcakes. Hell, maybe Apple has already done exactly that.

Use this calculator to calculate the great circle distance. Not that it matters, with these choices.

Can you use scientific notation or suffixes like "k" or "M" next time when you are enumerating Rupees? I have a hard time reading the text when I have to stop and count zeroes.

Here's an interesting depiction of the average US expenditures. It would be nice to see similar charts from India and elsewhere.