The poll also didn't specify personal mail. In the five months of my internship, I hand addressed, labeled, and stamped at least 100 pieces of mail.

It's kinda clear, actually. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
If Congress wants to regulate patents in a way that helps big business, then they can.

For the first time ever in a new Windows installation I didn't feel compelled to immediately set up my video drivers. Everything worked smoothly enough. Of course, I did eventually load them up, but it didn't even require a reboot. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with Windows 7 so far.

Sure, we can turn our cellphones off ... but the slippery slope leads to the idea that we shouldn't expect privacy in our homes because they have windows and doors

Actually, you don't have a right to privacy to anything that can be seen through your windows. It's called plain sight. It's the reason you should never just let a cop inside your house (anything illegal sitting around is fair game) or just leave the baggy of weed in your car on the front seat. Because it's plainly visible and anyone can see it.

And you think that the time and straight up costs of court will be greater than your one lost day chasing around a bill? Yeah, lemme know how that goes

from the don't-we-post-this-every-few-months dept.

Then why do you keep posting them?

I plugged in my shiny new Nokia E71 into my Ubuntu 8.10 machine and it automatically started configuring it. I have no need to use it in this manner so I stopped it, but it seemed like it would work fine.

But none of the devices that use Windows Mobile also use this driver.

Ok, so it destroys the credibility of the journal, as well as the credibility of any papers coauthored by this individual, and destroys the credibility of anyone who decided that getting published (by allowing El Naschie to get his name on the paper) was more important than academic rigor. I don't see the long term, lasting harm.

OneNote is a horrible document creator. It's good for taking notes, what it's designed for, but is definitely not useful for writing something the length of a book. It could be good for outlining and prepwork for writing, but for the actual document, use something else.

Over break I've been learning LaTeX and certainly it's going to be everything a burgeoning author needs.

I've also been learning LyX and it's a WYSIWYM(ean) front-end for LaTeX. I suggest you try it.

Differences in the sound reflected in your example are because of the differences in frequency in the originating sound. The sound rangefinding they're using uses one specific frequency and is going to be pretty darn close. Unless they're also using laser rangefinding as well to compare the difference, I don't think there's anyway to distinguish what sort've material an object is made of with just sound.

Actually, they recently created a "go-between" page for all external links, I believe. It repeats what URL is being requested and then has a button that says "go there anyway". The ones that are known viruses are completely blocked.
That sounds pretty proactive to me

The system as it existed^W exists works on faith.

Our entire economy, since we've moved from the gold standard in the 70's to a pure fiat based monetary system is still entirely, 100% based on faith. Your money has no value other than what other people think it's worth.