You'd think that for a city on a fault line, situated right next to the world's biggest proving ground for new technology, the Bay Area could come up with a better class of super villains and evil geniuses. Giant robots tromping down Market Street, mind control rays broadcast from Sutro Tower, sheesh, even some sea lions with frickin' laser beams on their heads terrorizing tourists at Pier 39.

But no, all we get are "Web pioneers" and Sheryl Crow-hugging guys in turtlenecks trying to sell us MP3 players. So with a dejected sigh, let's go over some of the delays and missed opportunities in evil tech news over the past couple of the days:

Danger! Death Ray
Last Saturday, students from MIT came to San Francisco in an attempt to recreate Archimedes' Death Ray in an experiment for the Discovery Channel's series "Myth Busters." Any Roman fleets thinking about invading the city will be happy to hear that the experiment failed. The students' fatal flaw was that they didn't just fire the ray immediately, but instead stopped to explain exactly how the death ray works, giving the show's producers a chance to escape and foil their plans.