Taxes don't just raise revenue; they are incentives that cause people to modify their behavior. People, particularly people who can afford accountants, would find how they could minimize their taxes given the new rules. Some would end up paying less than before while others, by design, would pay the same, causing tax…

If a Google Image search for your name looks like this, you've done something right with your life.

When one company wants to send a message securely to another, they select a trusted intern, shave his head, and tattoo the message into his scalp. After waiting for the hair to grow back, the intern travels on horseback to the other company, who shave his head again to read the message. It's a bit obsolete, but you…

You really can't thank them enough.

Why does the guy have his hand like that? He is assuming the hand-in-waistcoat pose. It was a bit of a fad in the 18th and 19th centuries, though no one really knows why. Some think it mimics a classical Greek pose, which looked better with a toga; some think painters asked their subjects to do it because drawing…

I think a person's enjoyment of a game can be affected by their worldview. Take someone who has been interested in cars all of his life. This person will delight in overcoming the challenges in Forza. For another person, this identical gameplay, with twenty minute races and constant crashes, will seem tedious.

Our consumer system asks all of us to do this to one degree or another. Every time you make a buying decision, you are thinking about how you 'feel' about the product. That feeling is influenced by many factors, only one of which may be your religion.

I think Lost is actually a good example of how the super-sized system fails. Lost had good characters and an interesting setting, but no one, including the writers, had any idea where the story was going. It was entertaining, but none of it amounted to anything.

The Wire's seasons were all 13 episodes or fewer, same with Mad Men and the Sopranos. I'll have to expand my maximum season size to 13, I guess, but they would be very different shows if they were much longer than that.

It would be nice if networks would try the cable/British model and only produce series eight to twelve episodes at a time. I don't think it's even possible to make a quality, 24 episode drama all at once.

From now on, that is the only way I'm spelling 'train'. People are just going to have to deal with it.

"Monroeville Mall, built 42 years ago, and 33 years after the movie, still appears to be doing well."

It's a difficult problem. Many people invent things and let others implement them under licence. For example, this guy, who invented the modern windshield wiper. He didn't own an automotive plant, so he couldn't implement his idea. Without the opportunity to sell his invention to the auto industry, he probably would…

Skids and Mudflaps taught me an important lesson. I used think I was better than those religious extremists who kill people because a book or a cartoon offended them. But after watching that movie, I probably would have burned down an embassy had the opportunity presented itself.

They bought the patents so people would be forced to pay them licence fees. That is profiting from the idea. My point is that either they will use the idea themselves or let you pay them.

While many question the existence of Osama's pornography, Obama has said he will not release it to the public. However, in order to allay doubts, lawmakers are being allowed to view the materials in a special room at CIA headquarters. Jim Inhofe, who has inspected the collection several times said it was "really bad…

What you've put your finger on is the non-obvious clause. In order to receive and defend a patent, you have to successfully argue that your solution to a problem isn't something obvious that anyone with knowledge of the subject could have thought up. How to use a bathroom is obvious, while in-app purchases might or…

Very unprofessional. Italian road laws clearly state that you must have one hand free to gesticulate passionately at all times. However, his driving was impeccable.

It was a personal attack on the person interviewed for the article.