The weirdest laws about sex in the US

America has a well-deserved reputation for prudishness. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the various laws around the nation that concern sex, though many of them are relics that no one has got around to expunging and are usually not enforced. But their existence has led to a lot of wags making up laws that are ridiculous but seem plausible, given the way that people seem to get unhinged when it comes to sex. [Read more…]

The most influential tech products of the past two decades

Walt Mossberg has written the personal technology column at the Wall Street Journal for 22 years. In his final column, he lists the top 12 new items that he feels changed the industry. It is interesting to see that it was not that long ago that the things that are all around us and seem to have been around forever were invented, and how quickly those that were similarly ubiquitous before but did not last (Netscape, Palm Pilot) disappeared from our memories.

Should there be a statute of limitations on revealing film endings?

I enjoy watching and talking about films but have learned never to discuss them with one person because when you mention one, she will say something like “You mean the one where X happens at the end?”, completely spoiling the film. As readers may notice, when writing about films, I try to give notice as to whether there will be a spoiler or not, because part of the enjoyment of a film is not knowing how it will end. [Read more…]

Naked Gun reboot?

There are some film characters who are so indelibly linked to the actors who created them that it is almost impossible for someone else to take it over. One case is Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in the long running Pink Panther franchise that consisted of eleven films. Sellers acted in five of them that were the most successful. Other efforts, even with extremely good actors like Alan Arkin, Roger Moore, and Steve Martin fared abysmally. [Read more…]

Doing away with windshield wipers

I used to drive a station wagon and one of its best features, especially useful in winter, was the rear window windshield wipers. They were so useful that I wondered why they were standard equipment only on wagons and hatchbacks and came to the conclusion that this must be because those rear windows were pretty much flat, while the curved and the sloping rear windshields of other cars made it technologically difficult. I am not sure if that is the real reason since it seems like engineers could have overcome that. [Read more…]