I may be mistaken, but Congress passed the Patriot Act., not Bush or Obama. If blame is to be had, it should go to the people who voted for it, and the people who voted to keep and expand it.

This shows who has been in control since the Patriot Act was created - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

I understand gridlock, but there were a solid 4 years after the Patriot Act being passed where the R's controlled both houses and the White House. The Democrats had 2 years of owning the whole show. Neither group seemed to care about limiting government powers.

That's true. If a friend or nephew committed suicide or has brain cancer, there is a good chance you may google info about those items. Someone looking at your searches could easily incorrectly assume you are contemplating suicide or have been diagnosed with some disease. Perhaps people need a startup file that does 10,000 random searches on diseases, terrorism, health foods, travel to Neptune, etc. That could hide any real searches and bury legitimate results.

If we are unaware, then how do we have a hypothesis?

"we are on track to exhaust our resources and die off on a withered old planet in the next 1,000 years or less"

The sun gives us an insane amount of nonstop energy. Do you not believe we will figure out how to effectively harness that in 1000 years time?

Let me be the first to predict Hexagonal Graphene.

While I'm at it, I'd like to also predict the following:
A sequel to 50 Shades
Future tension in the middle east
Hershey's coming out with a white chocolate syrup
Taco Bell being the only survivor of the restaurant wars
Facebook to soon cause an uproar due to a perceived privacy violation

"Microsoft has been continually dying for the past decade"

Yeah, 10 years ago their stock was $25 and now its only $43.70. And in all that time they have only paid 40 dividends. And for 2014 they only showed a 25.42% net profit margin. I'm surprised they are keeping the doors open.

"The person started off by asking me if it was an excel file, a PDF, etc"

He may have also been trying to determine the size of the file. You may attack the problem differently if it is a 200k pdf vs a 40GB log file.

"Big Dumb Pipe"

This exists. You can get a "High-Speed Symmetrical Broadband with no other restrictions, bells, whistles, nor even the ability to log your activities" as long as you pay for it. Just go to your Telco and say you want it and are willing to pay for it. They will gladly provide what you require. Oh wait, you wanted it for $30 a month? I'd like a new Porsche for $100 also.

"So if I put my own SSN in a Slashdot post..."

Why bother using your SSN? Just pick a random one. This (http://socialsecuritynumerology.com/prefixes.php) is a good start.

412-44-0001 412-44-0002 412-44-0003 412-44-0004
412-44-0005 412-44-0006 412-44-0007 412-44-0008
412-44-0009 412-44-0010 412-44-0011 412-44-0012
412-44-0013 412-44-0014 412-44-0015 412-44-0016
412-44-0017 412-44-0018 412-44-0019 412-44-0020
412-44-0021 412-44-0022 412-44-0023 412-44-0024
412-44-0025 412-44-0026 412-44-0027 412-44-0028
412-44-0029 412-44-0030 412-44-0031 412-44-0032 ...

Let me guess. You were "born after 1980"

All of this talk is skewed anyway since the type of people able to respond to this are most likely have the top 1% income in the world.

FYI: Dollartree usually has those in stock and they're only a buck.

Could it then be interpreted that if you don't fall within that subset (17-45yo able bodied men and National Guard women), your "right to keep and bear arms" may not be covered under the 2nd amendment?

The 13th amendment states:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Technically, slavery is legal as long as the person has been convicted of a crime and it is deemed as the punishment.

"If an educational society orders 1000 pts of them, $5000 makes a big dent in a tight budget."

No it doesn't. If you are already spending $35k, then $5k shouldn't break the budget. If so, order 150 less units.