The Writer
Skip to contentWith apologies to any victims of my unforgivable stereotyping, I’ve long considered a police scanner to be an extraneous bit of Heathkit gadgetry only interesting to three groups of people. One, bottom-feeder trial attorneys desperate to be first on the … Continue reading
Today’s column began as an email to my parents to warn them. I’d planned on sending it under the subject line “At least this message you can trust.” Email scams are as old as email itself. But something’s happened recently: … Continue reading
As a parent, I worry about how much television my kids watch, but the judgment calls are getting more difficult because the old rules don’t work anymore. New developments challenge everything I learned when I was younger. First, let’s review … Continue reading
On the wall in my office hangs a photograph of Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda dome at the University of Virginia. In the nighttime image, as soft yellow light glows from between the building’s white columns, a single bolt of brilliant white … Continue reading
With widespread e-mail use 20 years old and a half million non-spam e-mails sent every second, you’d think we’d all be e-mail experts, but we’re not. I’m stumped by the number of small mistakes, and amazed by the whoppers. The … Continue reading
The way we entertain and enlighten ourselves is crossing a threshold as big as the invention of the Gutenberg press and moving pictures. Two things happened this past week to prove it. First, Netflix changed its pricing structure to push … Continue reading
My recent column prompted some e-mail dialogue with readers about how families handle long trips by car. Here are irrefutable truths, in no particular order, learned from our summer’s 5,000 miles (no exaggeration) of travel in the United States and … Continue reading
Before we drove to Los Angeles for a family tour of amusement parks, my colleague advised, “You don’t want to tackle LA’s freeways without a GPS unit.” I’ve long been a Rand McNally guy, but why not? She loaned us … Continue reading
A quiet revolution is taking place under our noses in the way we interact with computers and the work they do for us. While not as big as the advent of the PC or the World Wide Web, it comes … Continue reading
It’s common knowledge by now that the actress on the cover of Cosmopolitan, thanks to the miraculous image-manipulating software Photoshop, might have a few more droops and blemishes than meet the eye. We understand how 70-year-old Barbara Walters can look … Continue reading
