First you'd have to learn how to talk surf, dude, and how to make a lot of vapid statements, dude, and how to wear cool shades.

"Bartender, I have a Jimmy Daniels"

That's all good and fine - but the much bigger challenge comes when decoding the brain dynamics that go along with every movement (during both planning and execution). Signal processing algorithms that can do that are being developed - but here all of a sudden 'trivial' distinctions (e.g., moving your arm straight…

You win!

Never quite understood the importance of tractor beams...

This images?

You just summarized the two cultures here: "engineering genius" and "hellfire missiles". Gave me a good chuckle (I live in, and love, both cultures).

Most of that fuel actually evaporates before hitting the ground (well, depending at what altitude it's being dumped).

ok - guilty of wrong-metaphor use...

So true!

It's kind of 'hardwired' into the system - the smell (probably), maybe the shape. You've never been eaten by a cop (I suppose), but if you see a Crown Victoria with blue and red lights on the roof driving behind you for a while, it's hard to remain your old self...

Not sure about that. Academe isn't known for outrageous salaries... Then again - you don't do it for money, but for the excitement that's in it!

Here's a short vid of that system in action - lots of whirring, hissing, and whooshing...

Now if you could hook them up to an alternator, you could charge cell phones in no time!

Brilliant! Do you have some Hummel figurines as well?

Yep. My Nokia brick holds up for a good week. While my battery life is great, my geek-cred suffers.

Now, can you make me un-think that?

Why thank you! I just wanted to go to sleep.

"...the oversized account executive from Cleveland in the seat next to them who smells of stale cheese...": priceless! Glad I didn't read this the next morning - there'd be coffee all over my screen!

Hmm. Yes, burning (or exploding) things are generally nice, but I'm thinking of nylon capes / gowns / hair of the trick-and-treating kids, and I see accidents. And I see lawsuits. Scary.