Welcome to The Faster Times update. In today's edition, we bring you Japan's earthquake, Facebook vs. Netflix, Egypt's special forces, the danger of e-books, and baked Rigatoni. Enjoy!

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake shook Japan at 2:46 PM local time Friday, March 12, 2010 in what is being said to be the worst earthquake in Japan in over 100 years.

Will Netflix ($NFLX) get Zucked Up? The Street appears to think so. Warner Bros and Facebook are going to offer the streaming video of Batman Returns as a test to see if they can make any money for realz between Heath Ledger’s maniacal masterpiece and Zuckerberg’s 600 million-strong flock of social seagulls.

American security and intelligence consultancy Stratfor has indicated that Egypt is finally showing a little love to its fellow rebels-in-arms across the border. Egypt’s interim military regime has apparently rolled a few divisions of crack troops over there to teach the rebels how to shoot, drive a tank, clean toilets with toothbrushes, and other handy military things.

Excuse me, I may get a bit ranty.

Yesterday Boingboing posted a blog by Kevin Kelly arguing that e-books are going to need to drop drastically in price:

I am having trouble convincing myself why digital books will not cost 99 cents within 5 years. All books, on average. Just as the price of music does not in general change on the length or quality.

This is a good one to make up in the morning, stash in the fridge, then bake an hour before dinnertime. All of my children (except the very serious, very hormonal, vegetarian) loved this.