it's true that I was taught North America was all but unpopulated when Europeans first arrived
This is true for most places in the Americas.
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Plague, inadvertently and inherently brought by very very early Spanish sailors, wiped out massive massive numbers of Native Americas. And it tended to travel faster than Europeans could colonize.
The Pilgrims built their settlement on top of a Native American settlement. Why? Because a few years before the Pilgrims, plague had come through and killed off all the Indians there. Also part of the reason the natives near the Pilgrims needed allies (i.e. the Pilgrims) against their lesser killed off enemies.
Native Americans just hadn't had their asses kicked by small pox, Bubonic plague, and a ton of other illnesses over a few centuries. And, therefore, had no defenses to the illnesses.
The massive death of the Indians lead the Spanish to import African slaves for their plantation system, instead of solely relying on Native American slaves. (As an aside you'll notice the further north in the continents you go the better the slaves/natives were treated.)
And, how do you think the Conquistadors were able to conquer so much with so few men? The natives had just gotten their asses kicked by illness. Hell, the Incan civil war that allowed Pizarro to conquer them was a direct result of their leaders dying from European illnesses about 5-10 years BEFORE Pizarro even showed up.
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Think of HG Wells "War of the Worlds" except in reverse. Instead of the invaders (the Martians/Europeans) being killed off by a germ/virus, the invaded (Earthlings/Indians) got killed off.
And remember the Europeans (a) thought these illness were normal, and (b) had no germ theory of illness (remember they were still cutting themselves to adjust their humours). So, the transmission of the illness was totally inadvertent.
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So, yeah, when a lot of Europeans showed up, the continents were pretty empty. Especially the English/French who showed up much later than the Spanish, which gave the germs a lot of time to work their way through North America.

WMC is "good enough" but you really want something like MediaBrowser is you have a lot of ripped DVDs or saved videos.

It is currently free and open sourced.
Although the authors want to move to a pay but open source model, mostly due to the popularity of it and how that eats into their time. They seem a bit slow to move onto that model however.

MB will automatically pull metadata info from the TVDB and Movie DB (open APIs) for your movies and videos (assuming they are named in a way MB understands).
Based upon that metadata it'll do genre/studio/release date sorting, and keeps track of your watch & partly-watched videos.
Has about 3-4 themes (supported by the respective authors) and within those themes a series of views (poster, banner, coverflow, thumbnail, etc.).

Also MB had a Music plug-in in the works (haven't tried it).
And it can handle VMC and W7MC recorded videos. (also haven't tried personally)
You can also look towards MyMovies but that is really DVD-centric. Although it is a great source for movie metadata.

WMC is "good enough" but you really want something like MediaBrowser is you have a lot of ripped DVDs or saved videos.

It is currently free and open sourced.
Although the authors want to move to a pay but open source model, mostly due to the popularity of it and how that eats into their time. They seem a bit slow to move onto that model however.

MB will automatically pull metadata info from the TVDB and Movie DB (open APIs) for your movies and videos (assuming they are named in a way MB understands).
Based upon that metadata it'll do genre/studio/release date sorting, and keeps track of your watch & partly-watched videos.
Has about 3-4 themes (supported by the respective authors) and within those themes a series of views (poster, banner, coverflow, thumbnail, etc.).

You can also look towards MyMovies but that is really DVD-centric. Although it is a great source for movie metadata.

This will be an Eminent Domain bonanza!!!!

This is just a land grab trifecta

1) you have Kelo v. City of New London saying that any taking by the government is for "the public use", allowing the government to openly grab land at eminent domain prices and give it to their developer friends

2) you then have the EPA marking land as "brownfield" (i.e. bad bad very bad, not superfund bad, but bad), allowing the government to pay below eminent domain prices (i.e. rock bottom prices, "either your signature or brains will be on this contract" negotiation).

3) finally you have this being "Green". So, no court or citizens can morally oppose this (or else you hate the Earth, bad person)
4 or 3B, because "Green" is a double, a gift that keeps on giving) because this is "Green" your developer friends will get further government subsidies for building.

Man, they are good at graft and bribery in Chicago.

The average attorney salary is ~$60k per year. And that is with $300k+/yr equity partners pulling the average up.
I was in my 1st year of law school when I found out that I was making more as an engineer (BSEE) than most lawyers were making. (Fortunately, my company was paying for school & guaranteeing me a job upon graduation that involved a pay-grade jump every year for 4 years.)

The truth is, there are just too many lawyers.
Most of them can't find a job in a "real" law firm. So, instead they have to hang-up their own shingle and become sole practitioners.
Sole practitioners usually take DUI cases or other minor disputes, often for clients that decide they're unhappy with the outcome and refuse to pay.
Sole practitioners also get to be taxed on both halves of self-employment taxes, pay their own benefits and business insurance.
Good times.

Add on top of that law school is ~$100k, which most people take out loans for.
So, if you go to law school chances are high you'll graduate with the equivalent of a mortgage and no job.

It really doesn't make financial sense to get a law degree unless you have a lucrative specialty (e.g., patent or admiralty law), go to a cheap state school (e.g., ASU), or feel a moral duty akin to the priesthood.

1) A patent is a NEGATIVE right, not a positive right.
A patent doesn't give me the right to practice my invention, only prevent others from doing so.
For example, ...
I can patent an improvement to a GM engine (which they have patents on).
But, because GM has existing patents on their engine, you can't start making knock-off GM engines that include your invention.
Now, if you are clever, you can make an adapter kit that, once someone has bought a GM engine from GM, they can adapt their GM engine to make use of your invention.
The reason is, patents tend to be layered unto of one another.

So, requiring that people sell their invention won't work because it tramples on other's patents.
This is why some industries (e.g., semi-conductors) rely on cross-licensing deals.

2) The patent system is already a two-way street.
You give the public knowledge of your invention (versus keeping it a trade secret), and the government gives you an invention.
If you aren't willing to pay that price (give up your trade secret) you can go the Coke formula route and hope that no one comes up with a Pepsi or RC for your product.

Not that patent trolls aren't a problem, it is just that your solutions assume a different architecture than exists.

OK, first off I love Netflix Video On Demand feature. It was in fact one of the main reasons I setup my Media Center.
I suggest either Anthony Perkin's (IIRC) MyNetflix plugin or the better vmcNetflix plugin (both for Vista)

But here is the deal:
What you get is essentially VHS. Both in terms of features & resolution.
No subsitiles option (forgien you have them; English you don't)
No menus and therefore no special features.

Selection:
This is an odd mix.
You don't have the full Netflix selection.
New releases are hit and miss. It really depends on what the studios let Netflix put on there.
The selection compaired to other VoD systems is very good. Especially the TV shows (which aren't in HD anyhow).
Also I al amazed by how quickly they are adding titles to the VoD service

So, Netflix VoD is not a replacement for TV.
Or cable VoD services (for new releases)
However, with your normal Netflix subscription (~$15) it is free. And that makes a huge difference.
Now I have a massive selection of shows I can watch anytime I want. I have access to TV shows that really aren't rerun anymore.