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So you're in the hospital. You want a reassuring environment. You want everything to go well.

But who's that man in the dark suit? The one with the shades. The one with the very suspicious face and accent.

Why, it's Agent Smith. The very same Agent Smith who contributed to making "The Matrix" something of a cult classic.

The very same Agent Smith who can occupy your body, or a version of it. How might this affect your surgery?

Please try not to worry. For the moment, this is just an ad for GE software. … Read more

Have you ever thought how pop-up ads really work on you?

I'm not looking for a rational answer. I am, as usual, trying to explore your feelings.

You see, things can affect us in insidious ways, so much so that we don't realize what we are becoming, until we have irrevocably become it.

Analytics company (1-1 consumer lifestyle predictive analytics company, to be precise) InsightsOne decided they had to know how ads were affecting Americans. In a deeper sense, you understand. So it commissioned Harris Interactive to probe, delve, and elicit.

The results are not an advertisement for … Read more

I have never presented a pornographic show on television, but I imagine it's quite stressful.

The normal scrutiny afforded TV personalities is surely doubled when your show has carnality at its core.

It is, then, understandable why a 19-year-old adult TV presenter, Sophie Dalzell, was mortified on being told by a judge that she must wear an electronic tag on her ankle.… Read more

It takes a revolution to effect a revolution.

This is the modest hope of T-Mobile, as it attempts to wean the American public off two-year plans.

In order to introduce the iPhone 5 to its mold-breaking community, the company has decided to keep it fairly simple.

Yes, it's co-opting the revolution for its own purposes.… Read more

They're a smug, self-centered, self-righteous lot at Facebook.

Which is why Facebook Home, the tool that turns your Android into a Windows Phone, was designed specifically for them.

They can stare at their phones all day, bathing in the joys of those closest to them. Well, those closest to them in a virtual sense.

They can also ignore the catatonia-inspiring monotone that regularly emerges from their CEO's mouth.

Please, you know I'm never mean. I am merely describing the new commercial for Facebook Home on AT&T, a quite stellar act of self-deprecation.… Read more

Finding true love is as difficult as finding an original needle in a sewing establishment.

No art form has ever made that more poignant than "The Bachelor" and its sister show "The Bachelorette."

For weeks and weeks, potential partners are examined, touched, whispered to, held and discarded, until, somehow, a lasting happiness emerges. Oddly, so many of these couples break up around four minutes after the show is over.

Still, the wise people behind the apparently rather fine HTC One thought it would be a good idea to compare choosing a phone to choosing one's … Read more

There have been days recently when I would have liked to have been taken out of the present.

Anywhere would have done. Greece 2012. The moon 2034. The entrails of a whale, to chat with Jonah, the eighth century B.C.

Science seems to have been very slow to take us out of our place and time, despite the best efforts of Michael J. Fox.

I can reveal, however, that progress has finally been made. For an Iranian scientist has invented The Aryayek Time-Traveling Machine. Or, at least, he says he has.… Read more

Me, I'd never buy Birkenstocks.

"I am a prehistoric intellectual" is just not a message I want to send.

Everyone has their peculiar aversions to certain brands, people, and practices. So, in an interesting psychological twist, Raymond James' research arm decided to ask people which cell phones were, to them, the least attractive.

Yes, which cell phones would you rather shave your head bald, pierce both eyebrows and one bottom cheek, and walk through a freezing garden naked than buy?

I am grateful to AllThingsD for not having an aversion to this survey, one which offered severe … Read more

I have no wish to excite you excessively.

I feel I can succeed in that with this post. For I just wanted to suggest something you might want to do, should you be awake at 2:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday.

Entertainment options are not necessarily legion at that time. So you might want to turn to your laptop, turn away from your usual 2:30 a.m. Web sites, and wallow in the glory of YouTube.

For there you will find Psy, the cheery performer who made you so much more attractive with his "Gangnam Style" overture, debuting his new single. … Read more