Copyright law is serious business. When I was in publishing, it was not unusual for someone somewhere to take an article out of one of our magazines or a segment out of a book we had published and reprint it or post it on the Internet without attribution. Most people are honest and respect copyrights.
When I was in the publishing business, editing collectible price guides, one of our specialties was radio premiums — those nick-knacks people sent away for to promote their favorite programs during the Golden Age of Radio. Every collector I met remembered the Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Except it didn’t exist. There was a Captain Midnight
I’ve run across a lot of self-help books and articles in my time, and this one couldn’t help but catch my eye — “30 Behaviors of Unstoppable People” by Benjamin P. Hardy. I’m not inclined to list all thirty, but here are some I thought were most interesting. 4. Never be satisfied.“The drive to close
I can still remember my first try at playing music. It was in grade school with an instrument called a flutophone. (They still exist, as shown at right.) I eventually graduated to a saxophone and was in the band throughout high school. So what are the benefits of playing music? At one point I decided
For my entire life I have been a collector — of Disney, books, games and general memorabilia. In fact, hoarder might be a more accurate description. Now that I’m officially old, as into my seventh decade, I know all this stuff will have to be dealt with someday. My worst nightmare is knowing at some
We live in a material world. This means one of the most important functions of parenting is to teach children how to handle money. According to a 2013 Cambridge University study, kids understand basic money concepts at age three, and money habits are already set by age seven. Jim Brown is a financial consultant and
It’s tough being a woman. I suspect my best female friend values our friendship the most when I lift heavy objects for her or reach items off the top shelf. Some are claiming that this gender disadvantage goes beyond the obvious examples and into mundane economics. In other words, women pay more for items simply
The 50th anniversary of the moon landing has brought back a lot of memories. I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy at the time, flying to Charleston AFB, SC to spend a couple of weeks at a “real” Air Force base to see exactly what I was getting into upon graduation. The flight
We’ve pretty much figured out there is a cycle to continental drift — periodically on a geologic timescale, the continents come together to form one huge supercontinent, which stays intact for several hundred million years before breaking up. The continental plates move apart, then eventually, say 400-600 million years, they recombine again. The last supercontinent
Something you’ve probably never wondered about — can plants get cancer? Not very easily. Proof is all the lush flora growing around the very radioactive remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. To understand why, remember that radiation can cause all kinds of cellular damage, especially to DNA. The common result is that the body’s