Brain Terminal works out the logic behind Universal Music's decision to ask for a per-player-sold-fee on the Zune and iPods. The result - downloading pirated music is now justified.

The Oregon lawyer who was wongfully arrested in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings is getting $2 million and an apology.

Thats a pretty steep sum of money for only a few days of imprisonment, but its not outrageous.

A tip for your Holiday shoplifting - don't try to steal an electric guitar by stuffing it down your pants. Its been tried, doesn't work.

Bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff going on right now with this site. I'm hoping to do a re-launch after Christmas with more of a clear focus and update schedule.

After reading just a couple pages a day (with lots of breaks inbetween), I finally finished reading Neal Asher's Gridlinked.

While this wasn't a bad book, it just didn't hold my attention very well. I've come to the conclusion that I just can't read SciFi books. I've tried lots of them over the years, but I almost invariably lose interest in them within about the first 40 pages. The same thing happened here, but I forced myself to finish the whole book, hoping it would regain my interest. No such luck.

This story of the 6 imams removed from the US Airways flight in Minnesota just keeps getting weirder. At first, I thought these guys just got removed because people were uncomfortable with their appearance and praying - somewhat understandable, but unfortunate.

But with the reports of them asking for seatbelt extenders (and not using them), and moving into first class and the exit rows its getting alot more fuzzy as to exactly what was going on.

This one deserves to be watched more closely.

We rented Lord of War with Nicholas Cage this weekend. Its been out forever, but we hadn't seen it and there wasn't much else worth watching at the video store.

I didn't realize this was a 'narrated' movie. I tend to like narrated movies, but its also easy for the narration to either get in the way or be boring. In the case of this film, Cage's narration was so deadpan that it made the movie drag a bit.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It certainly isn't action-packed, but its an interesting topic and this was a good story. Mrs. Neoflux didn't enjoy it much at all. She was pretty bored after about 30 minutes of waiting for something to happen.

Another must-have for the Wii: Wii Play

Do you think smelling like smell like Play-Doh will help you with the ladies? Or will it just make you seem like a pedophile?

So some students video their teacher in a screaming tirade at school, and the school punishes the students and moves to ban all recording equipment from classrooms. What a great example the adults are setting for the kids.

Back in early 2004, I wondered where Russia was headin after its media was not reporting negative information about their own military. Now, it would appear that either at Putin's direction, or people acting on bahalf of Putin have poisoned at least 3 people that oppose him over the last year or so.

Plus they are supplying arms to Iran. How long till we can consider them an enemy again?

Jet Blue Airlines is giving away beer on its Thanksgiving Day flights. Flying would be marginally better if this happened on every flight.

A Russian Cosmonaut hit a golf ball in space above the Pacific Ocean today - only the 2nd such shot ever.

Thats it, the party is over.

Not sure I'd ever actually do this, but you can make a golf club pov training aid that lights up and spells words if you swing it properly. Cool idea - not very practical.

Michael Moore's first draft of what Dems will do is up over at The Daily Gut. (final product on top, draft in red on the bottom)

Get a free piece of otherwise pricey software every day at Giveaway of the Day. Today's software is for scheduled back-ups. I've actually been toying with this idea for all my web data so this is timely for me.

Turning off your computer every now and again might be worth $100 or more per year.

A fan-site for the cutest news-babe in the world: Melissa Theuriau.

The music industry appears determined to alienate every single fan of their products. Now, they are threatening to sue sports fans that create parody songs based on published works.

Families suing federal goverment for 100 million dollars after discovering that the FBI allowed people to be framed for murder 40 years ago in order to protect informants.

Big 12 officials admit that they screwed Mizzou out of a win this weekend. As a KU alum, I'm perfectly OK with this.

50 Loose Ends from the TV show Lost. I really, really like this show - but they very much need to start the process of wrapping up some of these mysteries.

Quentin Tarantino is going to act again, though not here. He's doing a Japanese western for Takashi Miike, the guy responsible for the infamousIchi The Killer.

I managed to get a Wii today after striking out on the PS3 on Friday.

We were out late on Saturday night and figured we'd swing by Wal-Mart and see if we could pick one up at their midnight launch - but there were more people in line than available units.

So this morning, I headed out to Target to try my luck - and missed the ticked distribution by about 15 minutes. Next off to K-Mart since they weren't supposed to open until 8am. Got there and they were already open and had handed out 12 tickets for only 2 machines - nice planning.

So I then tried Circuit City since the Best Buy right next door had 50+ people in line and supposedly 53 units. I wasn't sure what # in line I was because there were people in tents - sometimes more than 1 person. But I hung around for 10 minutes and they came out and started handing out tickets for the 12 units they had in stock - I ended up being #10.

I'll give it a few days of play before giving any type of review. My first impression though, is that its smaller than I expected. Not much bigger than about 3 DVD cases stacked together.