From the Indictment:

1. KIM DOTCOM, MEGAUPLOAD LIMITED, VESTOR LIMITED, FINN BATATO, JULIUS BENCKO, SVEN ECHTERNACH, MATHIAS ORTMANN, ANDRUS NOMM, and BRAM VAN DER KOLK, the defendants, and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, were members of the “Mega Conspiracy,” a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale with estimated harm to copyright holders well in excess of $500,000,000 and reported income in excess of $175,000,000.

All throughout the Indictment the defendants are referred to as the Mega Conspiracy. Isn't that a bit unprofessional? Do they indict people being accused of murder as "The Murderer" as if that person has already been found guilty? I would hope that the jurors don't have access to this document as I would find it quite slanted. If I couldn't trust the writers to print facts as opposed to opinion, then I would as a juror find it my duty to consider jury nullification as an option to balance the justice scales.

I don't encourage copyright infringement but I do believe in a fair trial and use of the term "Mega Conspiracy" throughout the indictment to refer to the defendants doesn't sound quite fair to me.

While this list is a good start to see which companies to avoid doing business with, I would like to see a list of companies that are vocal about being against SOPA so that I can direct my spending dollars towards them. If a lot of people shifted their spending dollars towards those companies against SOPA, maybe the loss of income may change the pro-SOPA mentality.

My IE7 doesn't render correctly either. The menu that should be on the left side (at least it does in my firefox browser) shows up way on the right on IE7. The stories are partially covered on the right side by my karma and poll boxes. The horizontal scroll bar thinks there is stuff way off to the right, even though it appears to be empty. The webpage doesn't seem to size correctly to the actual browser size. (My Firefox browser seems to render everything better.)

From the cnet article:

"RIAA lawyers have told the judge that LimeWire costs the record labels about $500 million in lost music sales every month."

So with LimeWire shut down, will record sales increase by $500 million every month? Hopefully they will use current sales figures including the 2 months AFTER the shutdown to calculate the lost sales prior to the shutdown and not just take the RIAA lawyers word for it. My guess is they will see little, if any, sales difference after the shutdown.

I would love to see them test a dome home. They are supposed to withstand hurricane and tornado conditions. They are about the same cost to build (or so I have heard and read.)

Thank you Ron Gilbert! At last someone finally gets what I have been saying for a long time and has the gonads to say it out loud. (Be careful though Ron, some blogs will ban you for such treachery. I know because I tried to say this very same thing and got my account deleted from a female blog dictator.) Now, don't get me wrong. The iThings are very nice products from a hardware point of view with the MAJOR exception of no user replaceable batteries. (Sorry, but having to spend $79 to replace the battery in a $99 iPhone 3GS is just plain idiotic.) The hardware is attractive, user friendly, and usually well designed (with another exception of the user-touchable antenna which de-tunes it.) I just have a major issue with someone else telling me what I can or cannot install for apps on my devices. If I am paying that much, I feel I have bought the right to install what I please as long as it doesn't interfere with the phone company network.

I am currently using a Box Office by Patriot purchased thru CompUSA (TigerDirect) and it supports Linux kernal 2.4.1.0 or above as well as various Windows flavors and Mac 9.0 and above. The box supports a good number of video formats including MPEG-1 (MPG/MPEG/DAT) up to 1080p, MPEG-2 (MPG/MPEG/VOB/IFO/TS/TP/M2TS) up to 1080p, MPEG-4 (MP4/AVI/MOV) up to 1080p, DivX 3/4/5/6 & Xvid (AVI/MKV) up to 1080p, H.264 * AVC (TS/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS) up to 1080p, Real Video 8/9/10 (RM/RMVP) up to 720p, FLV, WMV9 (1080p) and ISO (1080p). Many audio formats including the regulars plus OGG and FLAC. Image formats include JPEG, BMP and PNG. The box has fast Ethernet, 2x USB 2.0 ports and internal 2.5" SATA HDD connections. (HDD sold seperately, but very easy to install.) A USB wireless adapter is available, but came included in my package. You can stream video from network storage devices. Best of all, it is small, quiet, has a remote control, HDMI output as well as composite A/V and S/PDI outputs.

1. A student writes a paper and submits it. These TurnItIn type services compare it to other papers and returns a score to determine if it was a copy of someone else's work. This student's own work now becomes part of that database to help the service make more money. Students need to copywrite their work before handing it in and demand that any service verifying that it is original remove it from their database. 2. A student writes a paper, it gets tested by one of these services and is found to be original and gets a decent grade. Later in a different class, another paper is required and it just so happens that this previous paper fits in precisely with the requirements, so the student uses it again. Remember, it is the student's own work. The service now says that he copied it word for word from another student and the student is accused of cheating. Now with scenario #2, reuse of a student's own work may be questionable, but it IS HIS OWN WORK and he should be free to use it however and whenever he wishes.

http://www.superantispyware.com/portablescanner.html I have had good luck with this. Hope you do too.

I always use index cards for taking short notes. They can be easily collected, sorted, stacked, used, notes expanded when needed, and thrown away or shredded when no longer needed.