Kirby was consistently mistreated at Marvel, and wasn't allowed to characterize the Silver Surfer the way he wanted. Stan Lee may be very personable, but that's because he's been cultivating that for forty years. Kirby deserves way more credit in the world of comic books than Lee does. Read "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story". Pretty much everyone involved (except Kirby, actually) comes off as an asshole.

"...We can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experence carries its lesson."

...what game were you playing? On several occasions I've had a surprise Creeper ruin my day. And there is nothing more frustrating than dying underground with an inventory full of ore, golden apples, and your diamond pickaxe and running back only to either die again, or find that your items are just plain gone.

On the road, hell is other people.

My friend pirated a copy before The Avengers came out. He watched it, then he went and saw it in a theater. Twice. If you build it, they will come.

Whenever this topic comes up, I feel the need to link people to Qik: http://qik.com/ Its a video app for Android and iOS that will automatically upload your video once you take it. So even if your phone is confiscated, and the data deleted, the video is already out there.

I can think of one person who knows exactly what happened...

Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey come down?

I'm sure there are other services, but http://qik.com/ has a pretty good interface. Shoot the video on your phone, hit stop, video gets automatically uploaded to your account, YouTube, etc.

Full disclosure: I have and love my iPhone.

Android may be a threat in some ways, but Apple has the advantage of their App Store, and it's parallels. Parallels are the key. Many people that have an iPhone are tech-savvy. 9 out of 10 people I know who have iPhones have jailbroken (jailbreaked?) their iPhones, and have Cydia and Installous. The iPhone is a solid platform, and people want something for nothing, and the third-party software for the iPhone let's them get that something-for-nothing, and in a really sleek way. The SDK may hurt legitimate developers, but it allows for fast, intuitive and seamless pirating of apps. That is where Apple has the advantage.

Setting aside purchases through services like iTunes and Steam, are the goods you buy online delivered via taxpayer funded public roads?

"People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."

You're right about popular vote being an entirely wrong approach. That's the only explanation for Halo 2 beating Psychonauts. Psychonauts is one of the funniest, innovative, and visually interesting games, whereas Halo 2 is the middle of a trilogy (and not the strongest of the three), where you play another Space Marine shooting aliens.

This proposal might seem outlandish, but a global helium shortage is a very real problem that we're going to have to deal with soon. Many, many industries rely on helium, and the price is artificially low since the government is trying to sell off its reserves by 2015. Aside from fusion (or somehow mining the sun), there's really no way to get new helium (it's a noble gas, there are no naturally occurring helium compounds).

If you say so.