A friend of mine has designed landfills for Natural Gas production and recovery -- peak production in 50 years, with a life span of about 100 years. Not huge amounts, but as you say, sufficient for a small community or a local industrial park is possible with the proper planning.

Much more of this can be done, if people would get their community leaders to plan how waste is processed and disposed of, rather than the out-of-sight-out-of-mind most people adopt.

Yes. The stalks, top leafs, roots, unripe or spoiled produce becomes food for the next crop, usually some other crop in a rotation. There's a lot of science behind this, too, as some crops enrich the soil, f'risnstance with Nitrogen, for the next crop which is more dependent upon it (usually something leafy) as an example.

I live in the middle of an agriINDUSTRY area. Most of the agricultural waste is left to rot in the fields. To bring it to some place where it could be processed into fuel would consume fuel. Further, much of this waste is recycled into the soil by insects, worms, fungi and bacteria to become fertilizer for the next crop (lest the soil become exhausted.)

It's a neat idea, but you can use any hydrocarbon waste for this process - cardboard, paper or wood scraps.

Somewhere in all the proceedings of this case and its coverage in the press I read a fascinating and disturbing tidbit - Just because something has been done before does not prevent it being patented. That's what this case was about, in a nutshell. Something was done before then repeated, with whatever modifications these people believed they had invented, so they applied for patent. Goof by the USPTO? You could say that, but the reality was "Internet", "Web" were unknowns and unfamiliar ground. Simply extrapolating earlier computer network, which the good old ARPANET was part of for collaboration with university people could have given some idea, but USPTO processors likely didn't look in that direction or even consider some of the old Wang systems, which could be argued as being an Internet, albeit more limited, as more than one person could work on the same ledger from various locations.

There's no end to bad patents and there's likely no end to them being trolled. At least this big one was sorted. Really, this would have been the short hairs of the world.

But any multinational with a toehold within US would have been subject to the outcome, no matter how odious. It is by these means US law may be employed to guide business and government beyond US borders.

If you had said Los Angeles Your jibe might have been 217% more effective than other leading brands, as it was it left me feeling unfulfilled and listless.

Despite their reputation as a back-roads people (who are now depended upon for a number of Patent Trolling cases), they got it. Does this restore some faith in mankind? I'd certainly like it to. Suggests to me these people are a cut above. Well done them. May diminish Tyler, Texas as a place to set up 1 room offices with a sole employee, placed there so Patent Trolls can try their luck at suckering judges and juries for really big zorkmids.

Though I don't read MAD much any more, I'm familiar with the Nelson Muntz character and the mimicking of his laugh as a meme... it's called Nelsoning.

And I agree wholeheartedly with the OP, Ha - Ha!

I'd also like to tell Eolas pondscum to "Suck it!"