Category: Current events
-
How the Post Office Could Have Saved Itself
The US Postal Service had the chance, early on, to become a provider of email. This was during the Internet’s early days. Few people at that time foresaw the importance email would attain. Neither, it seems, did the Postal Service. In fact, the Postal Service saw email as a threat, not as an opportunity. If…
-
Me and Automatic Doors
Someone once predicted that automatic doors would never catch on. Oh, yeah, that someone was me. It just proves how awful is my track record as a predictor of trends and technology. I don’t recall where or when I saw my first automatic sliding door. Hospital? Library? Grocery store? Being a kid, though, I remember…
-
Did We Just Trade Away the Internet?
Did we just trade away the Internet? It sure looks that way. Donât take me too literally. Weâll always have something called âthe Internetâ. It just wonât necessarily be the real Internet, the one weâve come to take for granted. By which I mean the open Internet â the one featuring a precious jewel called ânet…
-
Uncharted Waters
Of all the post election punditry I’ve read, one insight especially stood out to me: The critics of our new president-elect took him (a) literally but not seriously. His supporters took him (b) seriously but not literally. A thought occurs: What if it turns out we should have taken him (c) both literally and seriously,…
-
Two Words: Were / Where
Has anyone else noticed a recent uptick in the frequency with which people misspell âwhereâ as âwereâ? That is, leaving out the âhâ? Resulting in written sentences like âI wonder were I left my car keys?â Iâve seen this a lot recently. In emails. In text messages. Even in supposedly well-edited articles in newspapers and…
-
Whatever Happened to the First Robin?
The first robin of spring! How long has it been since weâve heard about that âfirst robinâ? Or seen one? When I was a kid, we took the first robin seriously. Birds had the good sense to fly south for the winter. That was back when we had real winters. At least we did in…
-
The Most Romantic Valentine City
Happy Valentine’s Day from America’s Most Consistently Romantic City — Knoxville, Tennessee, home of “Notes from Stonehaven”. Â Okay, so I had to weasel-word that (with “consistently”) in order to justify the “most” boast. Technically, Knoxville was bumped this year from first to third place by the new champ, Alexandria, Virginia. Congratulations, Alexandria. Don’t get used…
-
How to Verify Suspicious Email Offers
Kudos to readers who wrote me yesterday to make sure I was the sender of an email they found suspicious. (I was.) Here’s hoping that didn’t stop anyone from claiming two gigs of free cloud storage. In case it did, here’s the link again. Turns out you’ve still got time, if you act today: https://security.google.com/settings/security/secureaccount…
-
Why All Men Are Transgender
It’s true: All men are transgender. Literally. As usual, it’s all about context. Let’s get us some! Recently I mentioned in an article that my wife, Cheri, is usually right. Joel Smith, in a guest post, said the same a few days later about his wife, Roni. You’d think we guys might get credit, would…
-
One Word: The Singular They
Glad tidings! English now has a third-person pronoun that is both singular and gender-neutral. Best of all, itâs grammatically correct, according to all the best authorities we need to heed. Itâs a pronoun weâve always had â and used. For centuries it was universally accepted. For a while it fell out of favor in formal…
-
Fabiola Gianotti’s Baffling Anagrams
CERN, the worldâs top particle physics facility, has a new director-general, the fabulous Fabiola Gianotti. She took the reins this month, having been democratically chosen by colleagues. The soft-spoken, hard-driving, serenely brilliant Italian scientist will need every atom of her legendary stamina for the coming ordeal. Thatâs not only because sheâs the first woman to…
-
All the Candidatesâ Anagrams
Itâs that joyful season when anagram freaks (like me) dig deep to see what things we can spell by reshuffling letters in the names of leading candidates for President of the US of A. Break out your Scrabble blocks, and letâs begin. First, a note: When anagramming public figures, I shoot for humor â ideally…