Depends if your laptop uses a model that allows you to remove the backlight from the rest of the screen with relative ease versus having to dissect the screen down to the "I can see the different layers of the LCD" level.

I had to go the dissection route. There's a few dust marks left behind from it, but they're not $100+ worth of annoyance to me.

Most screens will run $100, and while laptops aren't made to be "easy" to repair, You'd be replacing the entire screen, which is just popping the case open and unscrewing a few things.

I've replaced the backlight on my laptop's screen (a much harder task!), so this ought to be gravy for you, and cheaper than repairing it otherwise.

Yeah... on the list of "Stupid Ways to Get Your Laptop Stolen", we have:

#8: "Oh, it's okay, my friend's watching it"
#7: Leave it in the car
#6: Pass out at a frat house
#5: Two words: Finals Week
#4: Take a leak while "telecommuting" at Starbucks
#3: Work for a government agency
#2: Check your laptop with your airplane luggage
#1: Put child porn on it. (for a legal alternative, your social security number will also do.)

Seriously, to actually trust TSA to be doing their job 100% of the time and NOT screw with your valuables? You're nuts.

Well of course everything is derivative. YOU are derivative. You have copied what your education system has foisted onto us all so you can graduate and become yet another derivative cog in the system.

If you were given a chance to see something truly original... you would go insane from trying to comprehend it.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrueArtIsIncomprehensible indeed.

This is the same customs that manages to constantly wreck some Star Wars geek's fanwank, yes? ( http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=60002 )

Not that I think Kinder Surprise are a huge threat or anything, but still, what priorities...

Actually, not true; Ethnic stores carry them, which leads me to believe they're under less stringent regulations than other groceries.

Also, Wonder Balls DID have toys in them originally; they switched to the hard candy after people complained. Figures.

It's the new "Media Buzzword" for Sexually Explicit Text Messages / Picture Messaging.

I've been hearing it a lot on HARO lately (a media trough for reporters looking for sources for articles and books -- it's also a nice predictor of media trends anywhere from a week to two months or so in the future), so apparently somebody thinks it's newsworthy that kids are swapping around dirty pictures of each other.

And without the internet, we'd be spending a LOT more than that.

Imagine the gas wasted on trips to the bookstore, vs. aggregation of purchases through Amazon, the reduced waste thanks to Print-On-Demand... you get the idea.

Google is, for all intents and purposes, the cost of business. I'm all for reducing Google's energy consumption, but it's a lot better than the non-internet alternatives.

You don't.

In the solution posted above, you're paying for a legal copy, but still downloading and using the pirated form as the e-book you desired to begin with.

Alternatively, you make it into an E-book yourself. Tedious, yes, but I remember one Hungarian girl copying a Harry Potter book by hand so she could have a print copy. Be thankful typing isn't nearly so tedious.

Well, I think it's safe to say that any girl willing to hang around on /. IS different from a normal girl, but beside the point...

... Aside from the body hair, do you really see this as a problem? ;)

Secondly, I wonder if this testosterone effect is the same / similar in women. (I'm pretty sharp, but I'm also suffering from excessive testosterone... well, for a chick anyway.)