I work in a computer shop and I've set up numerous ADF scanners, none of which cost more than $3,000 and most of which were $1,500. They all seem to work great and I've heard no complaints of jams or picking up extra paper. They're almost all small (like a small inkjet) scanners without a flatbed, and they all operate in the 30+ ppm range and support scanning over a network. A few Fujitsu's, a few Canon's and one monstrous and very old HP SCSI scanner (comes with a flatbed as well) and none of them so far as I can tell have had any issues jamming or missing pages

Well 44 years for those of us observing from Earth. Much less time for those of us making the journey (assuming they're traveling at the speed of light or close to it.) Still that is a huge if. Though radio contact with an intelligent and sufficiently technicially advanced species that close would be very possible.

Very likely there is a subconscious connection as it's really an Opteron 6200, the 2600 is a typo.

Those are used games, new games are given in the original plastic wrap.

Exactly, even without sending up malicious satellites, there's enough space junk up there that's hard enough to track. Why would you want it to cost only $300 to send something into space. That sounds like a really terrible idea unless they have a nice garbage collection method planned.

Looking at the photo of the clay tablet just makes me think I would have at least tried to get creative with the scam. You know, like trace a scene from Angry birds onto the clay before putting it into a box. Or maybe something like words with friends. These scammers are way too lazy.

This reminds me of a scam a friend's brother used to pull where he'd go to Best Buy, purchase a video game, open the little fold in the plastic with a razor, take the disc out, then return the game. I'm sure he's not the only person doing it, and I always wonder what happen when you're the person who thought you purchased Call of Duty but instead received an empty box that you now have to return to the store.

As far as them not believing the original customer with the clay iPad till a few more people came back, couldn't they have seen that the item had in fact been returned at some point prior to him purchasing it or do they not keep track of that information for "unopened" purchases?

Well basically what I pulled from the article is that the entire thing is vaporware as far as what they think it might eventually do. Getting some little device with no camera and no controllers to swim in a fish tank (not in any particular direction) externally powered by an MRI machine is not at all like having a device that won't cause any harm and can actually do something useful inside a patient.

Most copper theft is from abandoned/foreclosed homes. Pipes and wires are ripped out shortly after the home is left, the new owners cover that cost and they're not worried about someone stealing the cables and pipes while they're still living in the home. Maybe some small places where utility wires can and are stolen more easily and frequently will want to implement this solution, but then the more expensive cable will now be stolen because the thieves think it's copper wire. Unless everyone was using the same wire and it was just "known" that looking at some wires they're not going to be copper, people are still going to try and steal the cable.

The swimmer is POWERED by the MRI not controlled. Basically right now what they've got is a small device that has a tail that vibrates in the strong magnetic field from an MRI machine. That vibration can currently propel the device a few millimeters per second in water. That's all the article seems to say, I guess they intend to eventually put a small receiver controlling some sort of rudders as well as a camera and a small power supply? It doesn't say much about how the device will work if there isn't enough fluid for it to move through, do you just move away from the MRI and let your intestines do their job? Do you have to return the device to the hospital or do they not let you leave till you've "flushed" it out?

Is the upfront cost less than or close to that of just a pure copper solution? If not then it's not likely going to be implemented. I knew a couple people who worked for the electric company, they'd come home with 20lb buckets of scrap. Just a dozen short pieces pieces of very large gauge copper wire, that stuff I'd say would be worth stealing if you knew you could do it without frying yourself (an unlikely possibility unless you had a lot of experience with high voltage lines) but going down the street taking down power lines with a chainsaw, seems like you'd be better off driving into a convenience store with a pickup truck and running off with an ATM machine.