I once wrote and designed a stage production of "Duel". Never was able to make it happen though....

What about a circa 1953 Chambers Model 61AC?

I'm sorry unless those are the swords of my enemies forged in dragonfire, there is no way I'd pay $30k

Has anyone read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age? This sounds like the beginning of the Dramatis Personae. It was a theater troupe that forced its patrons to wear goggles with a HUD. They could then control what the viewer could and could not see and even suggest lines. In the end the patrons were as much a part of…

Supposedly that wasn't even supposed to happen. The author had originally intended that Pinocchio be hanged for his crimes, but later changed the ending of the book to have Pinocchio be save by the blue fairy. Aren't the darker versions of these stories much more interesting?

In The Adventures of Pinochio (the book upon which the Disney movie was based), Pinochio meets the talking cricket and promptly smashes him with a mallet for lecturing.

io9 did an interesting article last year about the statistics of birthdays. Check it out. [io9.com] If you do the math you only need to poll 57 people to have a 95% chance of meeting someone with the same birthday. Very interesting math.

I know I have to replace the brakes in my hybrid car significantly less because of regenerative braking. Makes sense that this would apply to trains too.

I am partial to schadenfreude myself. A German word meaning enjoyment taken from the misery of someone else. I use it all the time and these isn't another word like it in English. Literally translated it means "shameful joy".

The first thing I did after reading the article was search the comments for mention of Kobold. Good call.