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Last week TorrentFreak had a post about a filing in one of many porn-related mass infringement lawsuits by a lawyer representing K-Beech. TorrentFreak’s post focused on the fact that the lawyer, James White, admitted that it was dropping certain types of people from its lawsuits, such as undercover cops, military personnel and politicians. That certainly reflects the double standard we’ve seen elsewhere.

But other parts of the same filing may be even more interesting. Xbiz picked up on the part where White whines about all the defendants he sued filing identical “kit” motions in response to getting sued… because it’s too expensive for White to respond to each one. Most of these are motions to sever, noting that it was improper to join so many totally and completely unrelated defendants into a single case. So far, most of the courts presented with such cases have agreed to dump most of the defendants as unrelated, but White makes it out like this is some crazy concept because the defendants dare to file boilerplate/copy-and-paste documents

So it’s ok for them to send out copy paste threats, but if they get a copy paste response they don’t like because it’s “no fair”?

I think we need a new word. Hypocrisy just doesn’t cover it anymore.

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Could two of the nails used to crucify Jesus have been discovered in a 2,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem? (Scroll down for photos)

And could they have mysteriously disappeared for 20 years, only to turn up by chance in a Tel Aviv laboratory?

That is the premise of the new documentary film “The Nails of the Cross” by veteran investigator Simcha Jacobovici, which even before its release has prompted debate in the Holy Land.

I’m convinced. After all, Jesus was the only person ever to be crucified, and nails were never used for anything else whatsoever, right?

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For EVERY youtube video, I always open the video and then immediately punch the slider bar to about 30 percent.

For example, in this video, it should have just started at :40. Everything before :40 was a waste. This holds true for nearly every video in the universe.

— Wadsworth

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Thus was born the Wadsworth Constant, now implemented across YouTube. Add &wadsworth=1 to any YouTube URL to jump 30% into the content.

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STATE Parliament is set to pass new legislation making it a criminal offence to "insult" Gaming Minister Michael O’Brien.

Fines of up to $11,945 will be given to anyone found guilty of upsetting the minister and his staff under the extraordinary new offence.

The Baillieu Government is seeking changes to the Gaming Regulation Act which it says are "reasonably necessary to respect the rights and reputation of the minister and authorised persons". If passed, the ruling will become law.

The amendment proposed to the Act will make it an offence to "assault, obstruct, hinder, threaten, abuse, insult or intimidate" the minister or authorised persons exercising "due diligence" in monitoring gambling systems such as pokies.

State Labor has seized on the extraordinary amendment, with Opposition gaming spokesman Martin Pakula branding the minister "Windscreens O’Brien – because this proves he’s got a glass jaw".

"Is the minister so precious that he now needs legislation to protect him from insults?" he said.

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Thus we can be sure that the whole world, with the exception of those who are presently saved (the elect), are under the judgment of God, and will be annihilated together with the whole physical world on October 21, 2011, on the last day of the present five months period. On that day the true believers (the elect) will be raptured. We must remember that only God knows who His elect are that He saved prior to May 21.

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It is impossible to enforce the ban against non-commercial file sharing without infringing fundamental rights. As long as there are ways for citizens to communicate in private, they will be used to share copyrighted materials. The only way to even try to limit file sharing, is to remove the right to private communication. In the last decade, this is the direction that copyright enforcement legislation has moved in, under pressure from big business lobbyists who see their monopolies under threat. We need to reverse this trend, in order to safeguard the fundamental rights.

At the same time, we want a society where culture flourishes, and where artists and creative people have a chance to make a living as cultural workers. Fortunately, there is no contradiction between file sharing and culture. This is something we know from a decade’s experience of massive file sharing on the internet.

In the economic statistics, we can see that household spending on culture and entertainment is slowly increasing year by year. If we spend less money on buying CD records, we spend more on something else, like for instance going to live concerts. This is great news for the artists. An artist will typically get 5-7% of the revenues from a CD record, but 50% of the revenues from a concert. The record companies lose out, but this is only because they are no longer adding any value.

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An unprecedented study that followed several thousand undergraduates through four years of college found that large numbers didn’t learn the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education.

[..]

Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.

Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning. However, the authors note that their findings don’t preclude the possibility that such students “are developing subject-specific or occupationally relevant skills.”

Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study’s authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning.

Wait, what? 40 pages a week is “heavy”? Is there something wrong with gravity suddenly?

More information, including the science behind the magic.

More fun.

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So, what have we learned here? That Apple decided not to put 3G in the first model, and they had record sales. Then they decided not to put a physical keyboard on the phone, and they had record sales. Then they decided to not make a removable battery, and they had record sales. Then they decided to keep the screen size the same, and they had record sales. In fact, a good strategy for Apple would be to do the opposite of their competitors, and they will have record sales.

That might just be what they’re doing over in Cupertino.