When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.

When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. read more

The cell phone has transformed public places into giant phone-a-thons in which callers exist within narcissistic cocoons of private conversations. Like faxes, computer modems and other modern gadgets that have clogged out lives with phony urgency, cell phones represent the 20th Century's escalation of imaginary need. We didn't need cell phones until we had them. Clearly, cell phones cause not only a breakdown of courtesy, but the atrophy of basic skills.

Through the magic of motion pictures, someone who's never left Peoria knows the softness of a Paris spring, the color read more

Through the magic of motion pictures, someone who's never left Peoria knows the softness of a Paris spring, the color of a Nile sunset, the sorts of vegetation one will find along the upper Amazon and that Big Ben has not yet gone digital.

I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for.

I got the bill for my surgery. Now I know what those doctors were wearing masks for.

You have to hatch ideas -- and then hitch them.

You have to hatch ideas -- and then hitch them.

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source read more

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

In view of all the deadly computer viruses that have been spreading lately, Weekend Update would like to remind you: read more

In view of all the deadly computer viruses that have been spreading lately, Weekend Update would like to remind you: when you link up to another computer, you're linking up to every computer that that computer has ever linked up to.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says read more

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.