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Last week I bought a hamburger and fries from a restaurant using its online ordering system. This way I could pick the food up directly at the register without having to stand in line and be around other people. As soon as I was back in my car with an old CD case absorbing the grease from the bag, I...

Our 55 inch television (which is really 54.6 inches, but under the Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in Accuracy v. Simplicity, the decimal point gets rounded up) was getting a little long in the tooth. The faceless demon hounds from the upside-down universe in Stranger Things were not looking as threatening as they should, and what should have been high-definition sound...

It was my first year as president of a major electronics retailer facing a serious financial crisis. “Decker, get in here,” I called to the closest analyst who wasn’t watching videos on a smartphone. “Yes, sir.” “We have a problem. It’s the future. Our cars are driven by computers. Our coastal cities have all been swallowed by rising sea levels....

Remember that strange elongated object hurtling through our Solar System from another star? The object – named ’Oumuamua for easy reference – that was so strange and so elongated that scientists said that rather than an asteroid, it was probably a spaceship containing alien technology? One minute they were speculating on how the aliens’ smartphones would at compare to the...

Two weeks ago, Senator Chuck Schumer announced the Democrats’ new slogan:  A Better Deal And my first thought was:  “Surely they can do better than that.” So when the New York Times asked readers to send in their ideas for a better slogan, I submitted mine…and it was among the handful chosen to be published!  I am deeply honored. So...

Two weeks ago the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.  It was a close vote and was based on a lot of false claims and promises that cannot be kept, such as the prediction that the English Channel will be widened so that all the swimming records will be invalidated. As soon as the results...

There was no denying it.  Antarctica was falling apart, crumbling like a ball of dried out play dough.  The scientists took photographs and measurements and put together little animated graphics showing how much ice was melting.  The people finally took notice, and started buying pieces of Antarctica to keep in their homes. Under the Emperor Penguin Accords of 1983, trafficking...

This was published yesterday at Markkaplowitz.com. Remember when you were in school, and it seemed like the month of December that was after Thanksgiving but before the beginning of Christmas break, took an eternity to pass?  When you’d think, “Oh, it’s only December 12th?  Christmas will never arrive.” Nothing like Christmas makes me aware of how fast the year goes. ...

This post also appeared on my own website, MarkKaplowitz.com. What I remember most about Thanksgiving is having a school assignment that was due the day after Thanksgiving break.  Why do they make things due the day after Thanksgiving break? Like the time in fifth grade, I had to write an “report” on Ferdinand Magellan.  I’d done nothing for weeks, thinking,...