In January 2003, when we last spoke to Nintendo's secret weapon, lead designer Shigeru Miyamoto, we urged him to start making games with a "grown-up aesthetic" — you know, something like Grand Theft Auto. Thankfully, he ignored us. With more than 20 million Wii consoles sold, Nintendo is now winning the videogame wars. This time, we asked Miyamoto what he thinks.

Wired: Is the traditional joystick dead?

Miyamoto: Well, as the individual who created the traditional controller, I certainly don't want to speak badly of it! What we're trying to do now is develop interfaces that are more welcoming to a broader audience. But we took a very big gamble in developing the Wii remote.

Wired: Your biggest titles seem more like software than games.

Miyamoto: I think of Wii Fit as a communication tool for families. It's a new kind of play that makes you more aware of your body and physical well-being. You can call it a game, but ultimately it's a type of interactive entertainment.

Wired: Nintendo is huge now. How do you maintain quality control?

Miyamoto: I'm always instructing my game designers on the history of the characters and worlds we've created. Often we're in development and I'll say, "Oh, this looks like a Sega game. We need to make it look more like Mario."

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Last month, Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, who sits on Apple's board of directors, revealed that he's been compelled to leave Apple board meetings on more than one occasion because Google's mobile-device platform, Android, poses a direct challenge to Apple's iPhone. If Google were to adopt a similar practice of asking its directors with conflicts of interest to step outside, its board meetings might start getting pretty small.

The first to get the heave-ho would be John Doerr, who finds himself on the other side of the Android-iPhone fault line: In March, Doerr launched the $100 million iFund to invest in companies writing applications for the iPhone. If Google's board went on to discuss App Engine, Google's cloud computing initiative, Doerr would again have to excuse himself since he sits on the board of Amazon, whose fast-growing Web-services business competes directly with App Engine.

Should the conversation turn to Google's vigorous efforts to optimize its services for the iPhone, Doerr could return to the meeting. But if talk veered toward Google's plans to acquire wireless spectrum, John Hennessy, who sits on Cisco's board, might have to recuse himself, since Cisco has scrapped publicly with Google over who deserves to get the biggest slice of the new wireless broadband spectrum being auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission.

Google's venture-capital investments? Sergey Brin should take a walk—after all, his new bride, Ann Wojcicki, is a founder of bio-info startup 23andMe. After Brin returns, perhaps the board would like to address tactics in the pitched battle between Google's Checkout payment service and eBay's PayPal. Might director Ann Mather, who served as a board member for Shopping.com before eBay acquired it for $634 million in 2005, care to head to the cafeteria for a coffee?

Of course, Google isn't deliberately stacking its board with representatives from its competitors. It's just that, as anyone whose business Google has targeted with its ever-expanding arsenal of services knows, there's no escaping the Googleplex. One suggestion: Rather than asking its directors to run hither and thither, Google could have its engineers build a boardroom version of the Cone of Silence from this summer's film version of Get Smart.

I recently gave my old laptop to a friend's 9-year-old daughter. Later, I remembered that I had left some risqué material hidden in an obscure folder. Should I ask for the laptop back or just hope the kid doesn't discover my stash?

Never bet against the inquisitiveness of a child. It might be next month, it might be next year, but eventually the girl will stumble upon your copy of Fondling Sarah Marshall. And when she does, her father may come looking for you with a tire iron. You needn't debase yourself in order to avoid such unpleasantness. "I think it's quite OK to say, 'Gosh, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I really need the computer back for a day— I left some important files on there,'" says Syndi Seid, founder of Advanced Etiquette, a San Francisco-based training company. Chances are your pal won't press the matter and ask about the nature of those files. If he does, just say they're "work related." He may see through the fib, but he'll likely let it slide — why embarrass the guy who graciously provided his daughter with a free (and soon-to-be porn-free) computer?

Next time, though, do a full hard-drive wipe and OS reinstall before donating your laptop. It's so easy to forget that Grinding Nemo is lurking somewhere in the Drivers folder.

I own a restaurant that just got panned on Yelp. The reviewer called my food "worse than off-brand gruel." I suspect it's a longtime foe with an ax to grind. What should I do about such a fraudulent slam?

Hell hath no fury like a restaurateur scorned, so your inclination is probably to demand that Yelp kill the review. But before you up the ante against your nemesis, consider the consequences of giving in to anger. Because, as Yoda taught us, anger ultimately leads to suffering—or, in your case, to more bad publicity.

No one enjoys being raked over the coals by a pseudonymous commentator, especially when the attacker is motivated by hostility rather than honest dissatisfaction or disagreement. But don't credit your detractor with too much influence. You need to trust in the sophistication of online-savvy consumers—specifically, their ability to see the big picture and factor out aberrant comments. "A single review won't make or break your business," says Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's cofounder. And that's doubly true, he adds, if the offending one-star viewpoint is offset by a slew of four- and five-star raves. That "off-brand gruel" wisecrack, though nasty, is unlikely to cause your eatery any real harm—unless you are serving off-brand gruel.

Not sufficient comfort? You may still want the review deleted on principle. Yelp, like many other sites with user-generated content, has an appeals process designed to weed out truly malicious postings. If you succeed in expunging the slam, however, your enemy will know he got your goat. And when a bully finds a weakness, he exploits it. Another mean-spirited takedown will surely follow, and then another, and another.

Now's the time to nip that vicious cycle in the bud. Mr. Know-It-All recalls an ancient adage about turning the other cheek. Was that also Yoda? Smart guy.

Is it OK to Photoshop my wedding pictures before I post them on Flickr? I just want to do something about my crow's-feet.

As long as you don't go overboard with the improvements, tweaking your soon-to-be-Flickr'd pics is perfectly copacetic.

Professional wedding photographers, after all, regularly blot out blemishes. "I touch up photos so people look as good in their photographs as they did in real life," says Scott Kelby, editor of Photoshop User magazine, who has shot dozens of weddings. And while such modifications might be verboten in the ethics-constrained world of photojournalism, your nuptials aren't exactly front-page news—no matter what your mother says.

Need help navigating life in the 21st century? Email us at mrknowitall@wiredmag.com.

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The news about the crummy tech IPO situation seems to worry a lot of people. But some of the best technology gets built in times like these because there is no quick payoff.

In the past quarter, for the first time in 30 years, not a single tech company went public. So far, that's more of a blip than a trend, There's no reason to belive this situation will last forever. Still, you've got folks like Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, calling the news a "crisis for the startup community."

Bah. It's a crisis for the kinds of people who do tech startups mostly to get rich. Let them move back to Greenwich and become hedge fund managers.

When there's no IPO exit, tech startups have to do one of two things: try to get bought by a big company like Cisco or Google, or build an actual, working business with profits and everything. The former is a heck of a risky strategy. The latter tends to push startups to spend more time getting it right. Many of the major tech companies were founded in shaky economic times: Microsoft in 1975; Cisco in 1984; MySpace in 2003.

There's another element, too: The cost of starting a company in bad times plummets. Rent is cheaper, computers ditched by some bankrupt start-up can be picked up used, good people can be hired for less. As it is, the cost of starting most kinds of tech companies is one-tenth what it was 10 years ago, because the technology and tools have gotten so much cheaper and more effective.

So a company that needed $5 million just to get off the ground in 1998 now needs maybe $500,000. More and more, that money is being raised from private investors instead of venture capitalists, and the money is more patient -- not pushing so hard for an IPO payday. Again, that's probably better for the long-term prospects of a start-up.

It wouldn't be good if the IPO situation stays this bad for very long, but it's not the end of the world, and it's no worse than when the IPO market is ridiculously hot and people are starting companies with nothing but dollar signs in their eyes.