It was fast and it was pitiless, like a cheetah taking down a wildebeest. At 8:00 PST, badges for this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego went on sale. In about 30 minutes, all 4-day passes were gone, and within another 10, all of the single-day passes were gone. By 9 am PST, it was all over but the crying….and the tweeting.

By comparison, it took seven hours for the process last year. And that was after three previous attempts crashed every website known to man.