Technically Incorrect

Our lecture today is entitled "Ethics and the Holiday Spirit."

The question at hand is this: if you order an iPad from Best Buy and the company sends you five, what do you do?… Read more

The Web is a lovely place to not merely get mad, but get even.

But what if the company you're criticizing thinks your version of "even" isn't even-handed?

A woman in Fairfax, Va., may now have to go to court to prove that her Yelping assessment of a contractor's work was vaguely just.

The way the Washington Post tells it, Jane Perez believed that Christopher Dietz had not merely damaged her home, as opposed to repair it, but also invoiced her for work he never did at all.

And then there's the jewelry.

Perez … Read more

Today, I am just speaking to the ladies.

But the men can listen in.

Ladies, you know that feeling when you've dumped someone and you feel a little guilty? You know that you felt strong when you dumped him, but now you wish you hadn't.

But you don't have the courage to contact him, so you just wish that there was someone nice to share your bed and bring a little warmth to your miserable nights.

Perhaps, though, you've been dumped. The empty-bed feeling's the same.

There's no one there. And who wants to … Read more

Hard is good, soft is bad.

This is surely the mantra that so many CEOs and politicians chant to an effigy of themselves last thing at night.

We hear the phrase "hard-nosed businessman" as a term of admiration. Just as we hear "gone soft" as a phrase meaning anything from rotting food to weak judgment to mental illness.

So when I read a Bloomberg Businessweek headline that whispered "Apple's softer side emerges under CEO Cook," I squeezed my eyes tighter in anticipation of a paean to wussiness.

What do we see of Apple'… Read more

As the election campaign ground along with the relentlessness of Ann Coulter drinking 18 cups of coca tea a day, you might have heard the phrase "Simpson-Bowles" once or twice.

This is not to be confused with Ashford Simpson, Jessica Simpson, or the BCS Bowles Series.

It was a plan to save money, so that young people can have more cash for bong-fillers and bubble gum.

Now former Sen. Alan Simpson (R.-Wyo.), the first part of Simpson-Bowles, has decided that the young haven't listened to him enough. … Read more

The other night I met someone who is utterly riveted by "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."

It was Windsor, the stellar barperson at my local restaurant, Sushi Ran.

"Why do you like it?" I asked.

"Because it's great," was her excited reply. I probed. She insisted it was great "because it is."

I wonder how great she would have found last night's episode 5. It began with Hermione (British, blonde) embarrassed at her drunken psychotic behavior last week.

It's just the stress of getting funding, explains her brother Ben (short, pretty, … Read more

Cell phones are more interesting than people.

They're smarter. They're much quicker on the uptake. And, unlike people, they're far more interactive.

This is because, most of the time, people have their noses pointed toward their cell phones.

Some very sharp minds at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business have researched young people's obsession with their cell phones and declared that the sane development of our youth is being threatened by these gadgets.

Baylor's Dr. James Roberts was quoted by the Daily Mail as offering these dark thoughts: "Mobile phones are a part of … Read more

We all live with the consequences of our finest ideas.

Or the ones that seemed the finest at the time.

I am confident that when the fine minds at Square Enix created Hire Hitman they had a sense that it would prove popular with men who are boys and boys who think they are men.

After all, this little Facebook app -- launched to promote the no doubt very fine and possibly religious computer game Hitman: Absolution -- allowed you to peg a friend as the target of a virtual hit by the computer game's protagonist, Agent 47, and share a video of the friend's termination, which incorporated a photo of the friend from his or her profile. … Read more

I have never robbed a bank, but some people find it invigorating.

Different people find different ways of expressing invigoration. So it may well be that one of them -- at least in the case of 19-year-old Hannah Sabata -- involves making a YouTube video boasting about how you've just robbed a bank.

Here, you see, is just such a video. Its contents allegedly fit comfortably with the facts of a robbery at the Cornerstone Bank in Waco, Neb.

Indeed, the Associated Press reports that it was posted the very same day that Sabata was arrested on charges of … Read more