On identical hardware, Asus sells Ubuntu laptops for $38 less than the Windows 8 laptops: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2012095/two-new-asus-laptops-offer-an-ubuntu-linux-option.html So why can't Dell? I think the obvious answer is that Asus is not nearly as beholden to Microsoft as Dell.

I imagine the purpose in keeping these communications confidential is to encourage frank discussion and the open exchange of information among scientists. Similarly, our society recognizes the privileged nature of communications between a doctor and patient and between an attorney and client for exactly the same reason. When a scientist's emails and preliminary results become routinely subject to subpoena for use in litigation by politically and/or financially motivated parties, this only discourages scientists from revealing and discussing preliminary results with his peers. Science suffers when open communication is chilled by the prospect of being dragged into court on every preliminary comment made by a scientist.

And as an attorney, I can tell you you are wrong; your patients' medical records belong to your patients, not you. Similarly, my client files belong to my clients, not me. How anyone could get through medical school or law school and not understand this is beyond me. I think one factor that accounts for a doctor's or lawyer's reluctance to release their records to their clients or patients(and I've experienced both) is that free records access empowers the consumer to seek the opinion of another professional. Placing road blocks and hassles to free record access is also used as a client/patient retention mechanism.

Civil actions for copyright infringement have a 3 year statute of limitations under section 507(b) of the Copyright Act. However, uploading an illegal copy of a song to "the Cloud" would be a separate act of infringement and the statute of limitations would start to run from the date of upload. Under copyright law, each unauthorized "copying" is a separate infringement. Also, while the law is not settled, most jurisdictions adopt a "discovery rule" approach to determine when the statute should start running. Under the discovery rule, the statute starts running when the copyright owner knew or should have known that an infringement occurred.

Mr. Pot, I would like to introduce you to Mr. Kettle.

Not the real reason. They are worried about the inmates getting boots of escapement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxF0vygnF2Y

I live in Illinois, Chicago to be precise. Around here, we consider Wisconsin to be a tax haven somewhat like the Cayman Islands. All people can talk about is someday moving to Wisconsin to escape the Illinois/Cook County tax burden. And we consider your highways to be a dream compared to our Illinois roads. Walk a mile in my shoes. I don't know what you guys are complaining about.

I think you have to look at the underlying economic reality. The 4 year old is only the nominal defendant here - she probably has no assets and is judgment proof. The real defendant is her parent's umbrella insurance carrier; that's who is going to pay if the plaintiffs are successful and that's who is undoubtedly defending this lawsuit. The problem for the insurer is that senior citizens tend to be overrepresented in juries - they've got nothing better to do and most younger working people try to get out of jury duty.

It was "Dr. Tongue's House of Wax" and Count Floyd's Monster Chiller Theater(scary stuff) although only the Dr. Tongue skits featured 3d IIRC. During the skit Dr. Tongue's hunchback assistant, Bruno, played by Eugene Levy, would periodically take some object and thrust it back and forth into the camera.

You can go back to ancient Greece(5th Century BC). Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth with his philosophy.

This isn't a court proceeding. A General Assignment, i.e. an assignment for the benefit of creditors, is a private out of court transaction where the debtor assigns all his assets to an assignee that he has chosen who takes the property in trust for the benefit of all creditors. The assignee is charged with the responsibility of liquidating all of the debtors assets and distributing the proceeds to the creditors on a pro rata basis subject to whatever creditor priority laws may exist under state law, if any. A General Assignment is frequently done by those not wishing to have the independent scrutiny of a bankruptcy trustee or bankruptcy court.

At least in the US, governmental fines are just the beginning of a price fixing cartel's troubles. They are also subject to private civil class action lawsuits brought on behalf of consumers. In fact, most price fixing civil class action lawsuits are spinoffs of governmental FTC investigations in the US. For example, there are currently pending several private class action lawsuits for LCD price fixing and the recoveries there will be in addition to the hefty FTC fines already leveled against the members of the LCD cartel.

In the US, you can thank the American Library Association for standing up to this kind of nonsense. The ALA has consistently been on the forefront of the fight to insure access to information by all, whether those threats to access come from self righteous censors or greedy IP barons.

All that's true but guaranteed student loans are very different than ordinary loans in one important respect - they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. That means that unlike other loans, the lender can go after a defaulting student loan recipient until the day they die(and even after death as a claim against the borrower's estate), even if the borrower files for bankruptcy protection.