Also see Girl Talk's Feed the Animals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_the_Animals

What about lending books to friends? I discover most books I read through having recommendations from friends and borrowing their copy (often lending back one of mine).

Heart's plan isn't going to save anything - barking up the wrong (expensive) tree IMO.

That's up there with Richard Stallman's song:
http://www.gnu.org/music/free-software-song.html

Wish I could rid my memory of him singing "Join us now and share the software; You'll be free, hackers, you'll be free."

"They could be in our equivalent of 1750 and we'd never hear a peep."

In a universe with an age measured in billions of years, it might be just as likely the separation in advancement of species be measured in millions of years. i.e., "they" could be far, far off being able to communicate, or advanced enough that them buzzing our planet and abducting people to study could be done without causing a massive fuss (outside of what many would think of as crazies talking about a close encounter).

Idle and flawed guessing: We're probably 10-40 light years from a potential 'other' life-supporting planet. Could it be that our first rudimentary transmissions reached such a planet, they sent exploratory vehicles on a research mission, those vehicles arrived and are now returning home before a decision be made (attack, enslave, befriend, hide like a Spathi, etc)?

I guess any sufficiently advanced species would be aware of the issue of distance and perhaps send a sequence of missions, or some official if-then instructions? Or would they take such contact seriously and decide that patience is the best tact?

Yeah, because The Simpsons has no worldwide brand strength whatsoever... ;)

It's a simple, cheap stunt that's got his cause heaps of press. Great work by Gates or whoever had the idea.

For future reference, the lyric is "dub", not "doubt".

All up, there are a lot of tracks likely to be tonnes of fun to play for Metallica fans. Really looking forward to this. (Who do I have to bribe to get GH: Pantera, then FNM, etc!?)

Here's what's missing from the key albums:

JUSTICE:
Blackened ...And Justice For All (Shame. Already released on Rock Band, I think?)
Eye of the Beholder
Harvester of Sorrow
Frayed Ends of Sanity
To Live is to Die (wish this was in there instead of Dyers Eve)

BLACK:
Holier Than Thou
Don't Tread on Me
Through the Never
Of Wolf and Man
The God That Failed
My Friend of Misery
The Struggle Within

KILL EM ALL:
The Four Horsemen (surprised they couldn't get this in there? Issues with Mustaine?)
Motorbreath
Jump in the Fire
Pulling Teeth
Phantom Lord
Metal Militia

PUPPETS:
Leper Messiah
Damage Inc

LIGHTNING:
Ride the Lightning
Trapped Under Ice (already in World Tour)
Escape
Call of Ktulu (biggest omission IMO)

There are a number of inclusions I don't care for:

All Nightmare Long (already have the Death Magnetic download, why even include it?)
Dyers Eve
Frantic (never really listened to St Anger much, so don't know it)
Fuel (there's better on Load they could've snuck in instead; Bleeding Me or Outlaw Torn maybe)
No Leaf Clover (meh)

The non-Metallica tracks look OK, but I would've liked to have seen more than 2-3 from the Garage Inc first disc. Maybe Sabbra Cadabra, Astronomy, Whiskey in the Jar, etc. Why not leave some of those other tracks (e.g., Toxicity) as DLC?

"That was my initial reaction. But at that level of responsibility I much prefer someone being appointed for their competency to manage well rather than their ability to do technical work. I have no idea if Chu is a good manager or not, just saying that the Peter Principle is something to be avoided."

I can appreciate that, but I think there's also an advantage in someone like this being elevated to that position where they may serve as inspiration for others.

Hadn't heard of the Peter Principle before - cheers!

Surely it's difficult to sell something that's twice the price (because of the required peripheral) of other games? I'll complain about $90 games but had no qualms about paying $180 for a game and two dorky plastic guitars. That's pretty impressive.

I think $1b is a milestone worth noting.

Could this freedom become a point of difference between providers of tertiary education in the future? e.g., you're choosing to study/research at Provider A or B. A might be closer to home and slightly cheaper, but B isn't going to screw you when it comes to IP and the like.

In some ways, intelligence and our helpless infants have gone hand in hand - in order to accommodate a larger brain capacity, human evolution has meant that our infants have been born earlier (when the skull is smaller). The alternative was a wider pelvis I think which would have worked against the ability to walk/run away from predators.