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The camera is actually the least important piece of equipment when it comes to "taking images that actually look good". Any digital SLR will do fine. Unless you need movie capability, I'd strongly suggest getting one of the slightly older models for cheap on ebay, and save the money the more important stuff (listed below) Pick the brand that your friends use. Then you can borrow equipment from each other. (If you don't have friends that are into photography, then go with Canon or Nikon. That's the most likely brands your future friends will have.)

The absolutely easiest way to make "good-looking" pictures is to have plenty of background blur. For that you need at least an APS-sized sensor, and a lens like 85 mm f/1.8. Here is a picture i took a few years ago with a 350d (very cheap today) and a 100 mm f/2. No special lighting, just an overcast day. The background was actually pretty boring in real life, but once it's blurred it looks good.

The easy way to take good-looking indoor pictures is to have one, or preferably two, off-camera flashes. These will cost you about $200 each, plus $70 for a radio sync. Place them on top of a book-shelf and aim at the ceiling. Now you can shoot at iso 400 (any cheap old DSLR works) and because the light is diffused from the ceiling, you get good light in most of the room. (You can also do lots of other cool stuff with off-camera strobes.)

Last: Get a book that explains the basics of photography. It's not that difficult, but there are a few tricks that will help you a lot if you know about them. $50 spent on a book will make a lot of difference for your photos, while an extra $50 spent on the camera body will make no difference at all.

If a work is in the public domain, then it is no longer protected by copyright law in regards to the possibility of circumventing it. What they are doing is creating a derivative work of a public domain work (which they are free to do, as the original owner no longer has rights in regard to how the materials are used), which they will then own copyright on until such time as that expires and their scans/ocr of the original text enters the public domain, at which point you are free to use their materials to do whatever you like.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

On the other hand, what Google seems to be doing, and what is the contention of The Author's Guild and others, is taking orphaned works, those works still under copyright, but are A) no longer in active production, and B) the owner of the copyright cannot be easily located, and creating a derivative work of those. The legal status of which is questionable at best.

Additionally, as a derivative work, Google will only hold copyright on any changes they make, not to the original text itself.

See: http://www.photosig.com/go/main/help?name=help/copyright
and
http://www.copyright.gov/

All of the above only holds true in the USA, laws differ around the world.

try photosig.com. when you go to the 'create account' page it looks like you have to pay or know a member, but if you scroll down you'll see that there's a public passcode.

my uncle's a photographer and used to host his stuff there -- maybe it's the 'slashdot-for-photo-geeks' you're looking for.

My off-topic question that sort of remains on-topic is this: With all the cheap labor available online (from students, amateurs and those trying to build portfolios of work), does anyone know of good websites where I can upload my photographs and let others "compete" openly to making them look better? A turd can be polished till it's shiny and bright but it will always be shit. I highly recommend fine tuning one's photography skills instead of "cleaning it up". I recommend joining Photosig http://www.photosig.com./ It's a site where you can upload your photos for the photography community to critique. Improve your photography skills by constructive criticism. Besides, most people enjoy editing their own work.

http://www.photosig.com/

A minolta scan dual III, VUEscan and the gimp. Together I'm quite happy with the results. But check for yourself:
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/viewportfolio?id= 99248. The first 5 are done with this combination.

Seriously I am not really a photographer, I don't even have a decent camera. I just use my digital camera to take snapshots of my life. If you enjoy seeing nice photos, you should visit photosig or photoblogs.org