Using data from two measurement firms, Omniture and mDialog, NBC stated that 2.1 million tuned into the live stream of Super Bowl XLVI this year. Of course, NBC is counting the legal stream, and given the prevalence of illegal ones, one can only assume the total number of people who streamed the Super Bowl, regardless of legality, is much higher. In NBC’s release, they said the legal stream of Super Bowl XLVI represented the most-watched single-game sports event online ever.

Move over, venerable PlayStation Network, for Sony doesn’t dig the sound of you anymore, and you shall forever be known as the Sony Entertainment Network (until Sony doesn’t like the sound of that and changes it to something else). Starting tomorrow, February 7, all PSN accounts will be rebranded as SEN accounts. This shouldn’t affect users too much, other than having to associate everything they thought they once knew with the SEN. Sony assures its users that this change is only a name change, and users’ account information will stay the same.

One of the first times I actually heard a professional support piracy was back in college at a concert of band I liked. In between songs, the singer implored the crowed to either buy some CDs at the merch table, or go home and download their music: “We don’t care how you get it, we just want to be heard.” What a novel approach, I thought. The next time I heard professionals not bemoan piracy was in a few interviews with people in the comic book industry: “Most likely, anyone who pirates our comics weren’t going to buy them anyway, so we’re not losing money, but we’re gaining fans.” Interesting view, I thought. Now, Mikael Hed, chief executive of Rovio, the company that took over the mobile gaming market with a simple game about suicidal birds, has a similar point of view: “Piracy may not be a bad thing: It can get us more business by the end of the day.”

Deadline reports that NBC is working on a spin-off from The Office featuring resident nutty main character, Dwight Schrute, played by Rainn Wilson, for a potential launch in 2013. With The Office having lost its direction and most of its emotional value even before Steve Carell left the show and took character Michael Scott with him, The Office is still one of NBC’s most recognizable shows, so it wouldn’t be very surprising to see them try to keep the universe alive in some form another after The Office finally kicks the bucket.

Unfortunately, a lot of calculators are going to truncate the results. However, if you manage to get a hold of one that doesn’t, solving 1/998001 will generate all the three digit numbers from 000 to 999. And in order, no less. I have no idea how this works, but it’s a pretty neat trick and even a bit unsettling. If you’re a fan of this kind of spooky math fun, solving 1/9801 will generate all the consecutive two digit numbers. 

Back in January of last year, Hudson Urban Bicycles proposed a bold experiment: Leave a locked-up bike on the streets of New York’s SoHo neighborhood and take a photograph of it every day. Like the crumbling of a mountain side from eons of erosion, the bike vanished bit by bit as it was stripped of its parts. It takes nearly six months before the first act of larceny occurs — the theft of the bike’s water bottle — and it’s all downhill from there. By day 270, the bike is completely gone.

After going from the floor, to the shelf, and back to the table, SOPA has been delayed again. This means that for the first time in months, neither PIPA nor SOPA are on an active course to being passed. This is literally the best reaction to the SOPA blackouts than anyone could reasonably expect. Shortly after PIPA was delayed, Representative Lamar Smith — in an oddly familiar announcement — said that SOPA will be off the table until a concensus can be reached and that nerd expert opinions will be seriously considered.

Sure, we have a veritable library of posts explaining what’s wrong with SOPA and PIPA, what’s wrong with the way they’re being approached, what’s wrong with the current copyright law they’re building on, and anything else you might want to know. But what if you don’t like reading words? Well, here’s a video that sums up the big, important points. Knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle, right? So get battlin’ folks.

It’s been a good weekend for everyone who opposes SOPA and Internet censorship in general. In a statement on Friday, SOPA author and copyright infringer extrodinaire Representative Lamar Smith decided to drop the egregious DNS blocking provisions from the bill. On top of that, the White House responded to a pair of anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA petitions and came out against DNS blocking as well. With all that and SOPA “on the shelf” until the nerds can come in and a “consensus” is reached, we’re practically in the clear, right? Not quite. PIPA is still up for a vote in the Senate on January 24th.

Just because there is a system for everyday folks to submit petitions to the White House doesn’t mean that the Obama administration has to respond. However, in the case of two anti-SOPA petitions, the White House decided to weigh in on the subject. Not to spoil it, but if you were hoping for a firm promise to veto the legislation, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s not all bad news, though, and the response does give insight into the stance of the Executive Branch of government on this hot-button topic.