How is #1 not always true? In its early days, YouTube extensively benefitted from (then) copyright-infringing music, perhaps not directly via ads but certainly indirectly via a larger user base.
Yes, it's basically a mashups of the two books. Each successive word is chosen randomly in proportion to how often in appears following the two or so words preceding it in the combined text.
Missiles penetrate shields. Target their shields system with your missiles and then target their weapons system with your lasers and you should make short work of most enemies. With the starting ship (The Kestrel), this strategy can get you through sector 4 without any significant upgrade.
There's the dynamite circle (http://www.dynamitecircle.com), but they're less about programming and software and more about internet marketing and blogging. Also, more emphasis on baselining your expenses via traveling / living in southeast asia.
Purportedly, Google has recently started banning YouTube accounts that are associated through common linkage in Adsense to other YouTube accounts which were banned. So this firewall you mention is not as strong as it may have once been.