One amusingly annoying anecdote about this: Emails sent to me by ticking the 'Send me a copy of this email' box when sharing Google Reader articles were put in my spam folder.

Lasers make everything better!

There was another group in the news recently who were also replacing paper with computers.

For a good example see this article: "Reflections on Trusting Trust"

But I have seen some other areas do a thing which I thought was odd at first, but makes sense. That is they have a one to two second 4 way red between swapping the roads that are given the green.

This is standard practice here in Sydney (Oz). There is an all red that is usually long enough to clear the intersection of any cars that run the orange before the next green is given.
This seems to be the most sensible way of doing things.

Your argument definately has merit: I use these gestures with a tablet laptop[0]. This probably at least similar to the single finger section of the patent.

[0] The Opera Browser introduced integrated mouse gestures in version 5.10 back in April 2001, though I didn't get a tablet until '03.

Example: Try to listen to Tori Amos Winter
http://www.mtvmusic.com/video/?id=47577
And then compare to the youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnboUbOGDOM

The Mtv version got a really bad 'noice' in the background in the beginning of the song.
Or maybe it's just a problem with their player and Linux.

I hear the marked difference in the audio quality between the two also, so it is not just you.

Of course it may not be MTV after all: as nocsript shows:

Temporarily allow http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtvmusic.com:47577#!flashvars%23franchise=FakeFranchise&autoPlay=true

"franchise=FakeFranchise" ... really?