"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," revealed Virtala, during a panel discussion at Develop Liverpool yesterday.

You're savvy enough to know that identity theft and illegal access to personal and financial data are real-world problems that you want to avoid. But what are you doing about it? Odds are, not much, says Andrew Jaquith, a computer security analyst at Forrester Research. "There are two classes of people; those who seem to care about the security of their accounts, and those who act as if they don't." Most people, he says, fall in the later category.

Cool hobbies and fun pastimes can recharge our weary work batteries. Thankfully, the iPhone is the ultimate tool for balancing work and life, and can help us get the most out of fleeting downtime.

Star Wars Moment: Several Empire commanders are either choked, threatened or murdered for challenging Imperial authority and/or failing on their respective missions. Real-World Lesson: If your company's chain-of-command allows for the somewhat indiscriminate sacking and/or killing of employees for speaking up or failing on business initiatives, find a job elsewhere.

"We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex [Borstein] variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy,' but after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand."

No so long ago, the computer geek was confined to the back rooms and basements of companies everywhere. White dress shirts (sleeves optional), thin black ties and horn-rimmed glasses were standard issue. Mainstream social acceptance? Not so much.

9. The Laptop Crowd at Starbucks and Panera. Wireless networking technologies have enabled a generation of do-nothings and posers to look busy in coffee shops and restaurants instead of finding themselves all alone in their dark basements.

A customer glances around the austere concrete-and-glass store, which offers two unoccupied HP PCs (with labels that read "For Power Users Only") and display case after display case filled with shimmering CDs, with names such as: Business Suite, NetWeaver, BusinessObjects Edge, Business ByDesign, Crystal Reports, Service-Oriented Architecture and lots more.

Publicly, anyway, Nintendo executives don't appear to be fretting over an oversupply of Wiis. But they're not 100 percent sure of themselves, either. Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime told Fortune in early October that while the videogame industry has historically "weathered recessionary times fairly well, if we get into unchartered territories with stocks coming severely down and unemployment spikes, then all bets are off."

Forbes states that Mr. Ellison is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $27 billion, which is a pretty nice neighborhood. Mr. Burns checked in at No. 6 on the Forbes Fictional 15 list, with a net worth of $8.4 billion. Mr. Burns, at 104 years old, nearly doubles Mr. Ellison's age, however.

"Personally, it is surprising to me that most of the developers that I work with still have no sense of the user experience," says one IT director. "A development team can create an application that does everything from balance your checkbook to burning your toast, but if the user interface sucks, no one will use it — period.

"Had to climb on my mother's roof once. It was so fun. I actually saw a naked neighbor girl."

"I went up to the top of a mountain and worked for a week from a tent."