Yeah, you'll see ultraviolet... Ultraviolet STARS after I clobber you!

I've done the same thing. I have a lot of .jpg files sitting around on my hard disk with images from over the years -- all done with a DSLR and an inverted tripod. Many tripods allow you to reverse the center column so the camera hangs downward underneath the tripod, which is a big win.

What's interesting is now I do the same thing -- better -- with my iphone.

I always have my phone with me, so I can snap a photo of documents as I get them and immediately put them in the discard file. It can also do large batches if needed, although at some point you'll have to let it go off and process all the images.

The reason it is better is that there are plenty of apps that take pictures and spit out .PDF files. They do lots of sophisticated things -- if you handhold they will wait to take the picture when you hand is stable using the accelerometer. They will scan in batches of photos and process them later. You can get batches of photos from your camera roll. They do edge detection and de-skewing so you end up with a true page in a .pdf instead of a picture with a page in the middle. They can enhance the image in various ways to make them more readable. And they can do OCR (though I never found one that worked as well as I expected), and annotate .pdf files. You can instantly mail or fax your .pdf file, or save it to the cloud.

Oh, one significant advantage of the digital phone vs the DSLR is that you automatically carry your documents with you on the phone. I've scanned in calendars/schedules and referred to them many many times later to see when something is scheduled or when it starts.

The app I currently favor is CamScanner+, but I also use JotNot Pro too. There seem to be other apps that pop up all the time (but you can't find anything in the app store so it's trial and error to find them)

Apple tried this a long time ago with predictable results. (well, predictable to most of us anyway)

...and then they will restore from backup and put you back at the keyboard.

The better "duress" password will decrypt alternate, non-incriminating data.

Or possibly alternate, semi-incriminating data that will show you had something plausibly private to hide like photos of you trying on underwear, or something else that was embarassing, but nothing that would convict you of a crime.

A friend of mine actually built a dome (in texas), but it was next to impossible to get a permit.

So... He built the dome in an unincorporated area just outside town. After it was all built, the town immediately annexed him, which was amusing.

In many other countries, everyone lives in concrete block housing.

Actually, it's that it can build curves, and is customizable from the start.

or... tilt up homes.

Couldn't you put the wall sections on their sides? Like 4 sections 8' wide and 9 or 10' tall?

I agree. If this slashdot article compared it to Lego for homes, I think we'd see more ideas...