While I agree with your point in general, perpetual motion machines are not an example of the patent office's failings.
The patent office's job is to determine if something is new and novel, substantially different from anything previously invented, and not overly broad in scope. Their job is not to determine if something works as claimed. A patent on something that doesn't, and can't, work, doesn't harm any real inventors. A patent on something that someone else has already done, or on something obvious, or so broad as to net things completely unrelated to what is patented, THOSE hurt real inventors. But I don't want them evaluating every thing as to whether or not it actually works, because they would likely reject many truly novel inventions based solely on the grounds that they haven't seen it work before, so assume your implementation can't.

And for those that will reply saying that the patent office doesn't currently do any of what I said, I agree with you, that doesn't change the fact that it is their job, it only proves that they aren't currently doing their job.

If your meds fit in mailing envelopes, and can get through a sorting machine unharmed, perhaps you should consider efficiencies of scale and buy a few more at a time...

My use of mail:
- receiving items I ordered online.
- receiving my insurance bill annually.
- receiving my auto registration renewal notice annually.

That's it, that's all. And if I could convince the last 2 to go electronic I would (the last 2 holdouts to upgrading to where many places were a decade ago)

I don't need any statements by mail, email works great, and I can archive on a hard drive just as easily as in a filing cabinet (in fact the disk takes much less space)
As for Junk mail, I don't really get that anymore. I told the post office to stop delivering it, and they did. (of course, USPS may not be as accommodating, but my country's post office happily stops delivering junk mail with one phone call (theoretically they don't deliver junk mail if you have a sign asking them not to, but I found that ineffective, a single complaint call though was quite effective.)
Phone books around here aren't delivered by the post office, but by a private contractor, I've opted out of them too. (on their website I promised to use their online directory instead... yeah... that's what I'm likely to do...)

Except that Canada post takes WAY longer to get anything anywhere than USPS (or pretty much any other civilized country's mail provider) takes to do the same job.
If I mail a letter within the same city, it usually takes a week. The other end of the country 2 or more weeks.

I routinely have the following conversation with overseas sellers shipping things to me:
seller: "We mailed the package 5 days ago, we see it cleared Canadian customs 3 days ago, why haven't you confirmed receipt yet?"
me: "well I haven't received it yet"
seller: "We're not falling for that! you should have it by now!"
me: "no, this is normal, I'll get it in a week or two..."

You see the package can get from the opposite side of the planet to Canada Post in 2 days, but it usually takes over a week from there to me. The sellers just can't grasp this concept, the slow speed is completely alien to them!

Not to mention all the items I can buy from China, that, including shipping by mail, still cost less than it would cost me to mail across town (and somehow Canada Post delivers those to me, so I'm not sure how they work the payment on that...)

Canada post is hardly an example of a system that works "better" than USPS.

I'm not sure how it's supposed to be hard on an android. Press and hold the home button, pick your app from the list of running ones. I can't imagine any easier way to switch between them... (I had this even back on my froyo phone, so I know it's been around for a while)

Except that I can have one cable hanging out of my wall charger that can charge my camera, GPS, cell phone, wife's cell phone, work cell phone, bluetooth headset, remote control helicopter, television universal remote, or any other device that happens to be nearby. All with the same cable. the only devices I can't charge that way are my friend's iphone and ipod. for that he has to bring his own cable.

I have a blackberry for work... I never could understand why anyone would ever want to use BBM for anything.
It's exactly like SMS, only it doesn't work unless the other person has a blackberry, and even if they do, you can't just send it to their phone number (something you already have) you have to instead find out what their special BBM PIN is, and if they ever get a new phone, that will change (even while their cell phone number stays the same)
I never found any reason to not simply use SMS.

Actually the proper research is very conclusive. There are no health hazards from cell phone use.

People don't like that answer though, so they keep trying to come up with something that says otherwise.

MP3 players existed before the iPod, many of them were cheaper, had more storage, and better user interfaces. When the iPod came out it had half the features, but better marketing. I had an MP3 player in the days of the original ipods, it had twice the storage, and played video (the ipod didn't yet) it also had a much more intuitive user interface, and a longer battery life.

Smartphones existed before the iPhone, many of them were cheaper, had more features, and better user interfaces, when the iPhone came out it had half the features, but better marketing. I had a smart phone before the first iPhone, it had lots of apps available, cut and paste functionality, and several other features that didn't exist on the iphone at the time.

See a trend here? Apple has NEVER created the "best" anything, or the "first" anything, They produce marketing. that's it.

And I'm sure that once someone else starts to make inroads in to the mainstream market with something neat, Apple will find this new device, make an inferior version, and market the heck out of it. That's what they do. And I'll admit, they do it really well.

"much longer"? hardly. depending on your model of android phone the iphone might have a slightly longer battery life, or your android phoen could have a MUCH longer battery life than the iphone. iphone is about middle of the road for battery life among smart phones.

Please give an example of a time where iphone has ever been in the lead? Other devices were better than the iphone before it came out, and continued to be superior after it did. Once the Android became mainstream it was already lightyears ahead of the iphone, and has maintained it's lead ever since.

the only thing the iphone has ever been in the lead on is marketing and market share (and honestly, it's lost on both of those now)

I hope you're not trying to use that to suggest the iphone would be better...

Unfortunately, no matter how far ahead Android phones are, the manufacturers are always rushing to remove features not available on the iphones. My last android phone had a slide out keyboard, a dedicated HDMI output port, and a micro-SD slot... Unfortunately as iPhone doesn't have those, many Android manufacturers have removed all of those from their latest offerings. Everyone wants to copy the iPhone all right, they want all our phones to be just as useless.

Where on earth did you come up with that complete and utter nonsense? Google Calendar comes with every Android phone I've ever seen, and it has always handled calendar invites perfectly well. As for future versions, I highly doubt they would remove such a basic feature that has existed since the start.

I found the summary easy enough to understand, though that's perhaps due to my knowledge of the current stare of copyright in Canada.
Basically when the last copyright bill was shovelled through parliament the government promised that it wouldn't lead to individuals being charged for private infringement. To try to guarantee that they put in place a cap of a maximum of $5,000 for ALL past infringements combined making the act of sending a lawyer after someone potentially more expensive then you could possibly recoup in court. (Also note that is a maximum, and the minimum is substantially less. The court is unlikely to award everyone the maximum penalty as that wouldn't differentiate between someone copying a few movies, and copying every movie ever made)

It gets worse, I've seen the "cost of living index" intentionally omit energy and food prices as "too volatile". What is the cost of living without energy or food?

That way the "cost of living" index, which is used to set wages and other benefits, shows little inflation, even while costs soar.